


Offshoot

by BootShroomIncorporated



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Adventure, Homestuck - Freeform, Just Generally Swell, Long, Medium - Freeform, Non-shipping, Original Character - Freeform, original - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-20
Updated: 2017-06-18
Packaged: 2018-11-02 14:18:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 21,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10946280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BootShroomIncorporated/pseuds/BootShroomIncorporated
Summary: A whimsical tale of an offshoot timeline from the canonical Homestuck universe. There will be comedy. There will be tragedy. There will be time shenanigans and confusing plotlines, as expected from a Homestuck fanfiction. Follow the journey of our young protagonist Will as he, as well as his brother and friends, plays a pirated version of SBURB and inadvertently helps bring about the end of the world.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story is based of off Andrew Hussie’s Homestuck®. Most ideas, plot, names , and other parts are owned by him. Even if it goes by a different name, is not mentioned directly, or is used in a different sense, it is still owned by Andrew Hussie.  
> Please don't sue us.  
> Also, this was written several years ago. I know it looks crummy, but I promise: it gets better as you go.

 

Chapter 1

In a small house, somewhere in the mountains of Texas, there are two young boys, who look so much alike they are probably twins. They have been in this world thirteen years, but it is only now that we care about what the heck their names are. Take a swing and try to guess their names.  
Rob and Bob Liverboy?  


That was most definitely wrong. Since you seem to be completely lost, I’ll spare you of having to use a made up name for them; their names are Will and Joel Hartman, with Joel being slightly taller and a little more muscular, adorning a plain white shirt with the recognizable leaf from Animal Crossing. Will has slightly messier hair and wears a white shirt with a paw print on it.

For a little bit let’s pretend you are Joel, and when I say you I do not mean you you because no one cares about you you but only you as in Joel so you doesn't mean you you but rather Joel you. Got it? Good.  
You have various interests and hobbies. You like gaming A LOT but you also like gardening and you dabble a little into basic botany and alchemy, as well as spending lots of time on a chat server called PesterChum. On this website your username is SeeingDoubles. You are Will’s twin and you share a bedroom with him. Your room is very clearly split down the middle. To one side is your half of the room. It is neat and tidy; you have a few rows of planters by the window adjacent to your bed.  
In these planters, you have many plants of all sorts and sizes. Some are empty, just waiting to be planted, while others are filled with medical plants for if you get sick (because you can never trust pharmaceutical medicines), and some are delicious delicacies. But most of them you just have because they look pretty.  
Will’s half of the room is another story. It’s covered in trash, dirty clothes, ferret food, books, and anything he happens to bring up to the room. It is so messy that you can hardly see the floor. He thinks he is so good, but in reality he is just an Over-Ecstatic, Weasel Loving Slob while he calls you a, quote unquote, “Boring, Hypocritical Downer” and he always gets his hair in this weird, messy style that you have to copy to pull off the whole twin-look-alike thing. It takes forever to get your hair that way. He just infuriates you.  
You decide you’ve sat around long enough. In fact, you have been sitting still for so long that you didn’t even realize that Will had left the room (he tends to disappear like that quite often).You get ready to go down stairs. You grab your trusty blow dart and tuck it into your dartkind strife specibus, for you could not use a weapon without a specific strife specibus. You then Captchalogue your mortar and pestle and your phone into your Sylladex. Sylladexes are used to store things without having to carry them around. When you Captchalogue any item (well, ones that can fit in your modus) it gets placed into a captchalogue card that can be dispensed later as long as it fits your modus’ requirements. You can only have as many items in your modus as you have cards. You have eight cards, so you can only hold eight items. For example, you have a Gardener modus. In this modus, you “plant” the items and after a period of time it will “bloom” and become accessible. You can “uproot” plants that have very small “seeds”, or items, and take them out instantly. A way to express bloom, or force a plant to bloom is to have more than three seeds. Once a fourth seed is planted the first seed that was planted gets accelerated growth and will bloom in about ten to fifteen seconds. So, now that your mortar and pestle have been “planted”, you slip some marbles into your pocket, just in case you need to express grow anything.  
You start to head out of the room, when someone starts pestering you. The phone plant is still growing so you pop two marbles into your modus to express grow the mortar and pestle and the phone. After ten or so seconds you “pick” the phone and “uproot” your marbles. You then open up the chat client with whichever friend is pestering you.

===================================================

\-- parallelDuplicate [PD] began pestering seeingDoubles [SD] \--

PD: joel  
PD: are you just sitting there waiting for that stupid modus of yours to bloom or are you just ignoring me  
SD: What in the world could you possibly want, and if you want me to get you some ferret stuff, then just come up here yourself  
PD: willie is a weasel but besides thats not at all what i want plus there is no way i can come up there because im out in the woods  
SD: Why are you in the woods  
PD: why not  
SD: Because normal people dont spend half their day gallivanting  
PD: >:P pffft  
SD: *raises eyebrows inquisitively*  
PD: >:P pffffffffft  
SD: *raises eyebrows even more inquisitively*  
PD: but can you please do me a favor pleeeease >(:0  
SD: *sigh* ok, what do you want  
SD: And what is with that emoticon, I cant tell if its a happy stick figure with no body and a hat, or a surprised angry person with a unibrow  
PD: thank you soooooo much just run outside and check the mailbox  
PD: see if a game called sburb has arrived i ordered the beta  
PD: and i liked that emoji  
SD: WHAT!!! You ordered a game?! Does Dad know about this, because he is going to kill us if he finds out  
SD: and its the worst, how could you like it  
PD: dont worry he totally knows  
SD: Ok, I’ll go check but if we get in trouble, its all on you

\-- parallelDuplicate [PD] has ceased pestering seeingDoubles [SD] \--

===================================================

You sigh and replant your phone into your sylladex. You make your way outside of your room and into the hallway. The hallways of your house are filled with modern art, which is pretty much just framed lines. The only art that you like is right next to the stairs. You walk over to admire this beautiful work of art but before you can your phone starts to buzz. You think it's one of your friends trying to pester you, but it’s just one of the trolls. After a few moments, you decide to answer even though you know you will regret this.

 

===================================================

\-- bluishSquiglez [BS] began trolling seeingDoubles [SD] \--

 _BS: hey, hey person, hey hey._  
SD: what!?  
**BS: what’s a pickle?**  
SD: You know full well what a pickle is, you ask me every time!  
BS: BWAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAH  
_BS: you should see the look on your face, so you can tell me what it looks like :D_  
SD: ugh  
**BS: BWAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAH**  
BS: but seriously, whats a pickle?

\-- seeingDoubles [SD] banned bluishSquiglez [BS] --

_BS: BWAAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHA *cough* bluh_

\-- bluishSquiglez [BS] ceased trolling seeingDoubles [SD] \--

===================================================

You regret it. Well, time to go get that stupid beta. You make your way down the stairs but about halfway down you start getting the feeling you are being watched. From the skies (or stairwell) drops a shadowy creature. It clasps its back claws around your shoulders, scrambles all over your head, painfully scratching your neck until it finds a comfortable position and promptly falls asleep. You stand stock still, trying not to wake the sleeping beast. You’re there for what seems like an eternity, just kinda standing there until finally, the weasel stands up and plops off your head. It's practically skipping down the remaining stairs, happy to have wasted your time. See, this is why you hate every pet Will has owned! Especially that weasel, Willie, he almost always finds ways to annoy you. And his name is so close to Will’s! If you ever have to call Will to dinner, that weasel comes plodding along thinking you called him. And once he thinks you called him, he won't leave till he is satisfied with your service, WHICH IS NEVER!!!!  
Oh, look. While you were stewing in your hatred for that weasel, you didn’t realize someone was pestering you.

===================================================

\-- bleakSkies [BS] began trolling seeingDoubles [SD] \--

BS: you should probably go get that game  
BS: sigh  
BS: you probably dont want to talk to me  
BS: no one ever does :(  
SD: Oh god you again using your phoney alt-accounts  
BS: /  
SD: That isnt even an emoticon that is just you using a dash and the pesterlog thing  
BS: / why do you always insist i have alternat accounts  
BS: sigh what is the point in fixing that typo  
SD: *raises eyebrows inquisitively thinking what the heck is this IDIOT talking about*  
BS: that was uncalled for but *sigh* was probably true  
SD: Well, at least when you are on this account you are modest  
BS: screw this … and you……  
BS: /

\-- bleakSkies [BS] ceased trolling seeingDoubles [SD] \--

===================================================

You can’t stand that guy... those guys? Whatever. At least that boring ordeal let you scamper up another rung on your echeladder. You achieve the Glorified Cushion rung. Along with this title you earn a new feather to show off on your hat along with 5 boon dollars. You have no idea what those do, but you earned them and you are proud. You decide you have been wasting enough time with weasels and trolls and it’s time to go get the beta. You go down the remaining steps and continue to the door. Outside the sun has nearly reached its climax. A whole morning down the drain due to stairway shenanigans, great. You open up the front door and begin the trek up the hill to the mailbox. The long winding cobblestone path curves its way up a steep hill then down to the other side. You crest the hill and look down on the road. It is more of a path than a road, with its uneven orange gravel that turns to pudding after a few drops of rain. The path forces its way through the undergrowth to a small pass between the two smallest mountains about three and a half miles away. From the bottom of the hill, your house is practically invisible, hidden behind the crest. The road continues on in both directions. To the right there is a lake and to the left, eventually, you hit the highway, your Dad’s zoo, and the mailbox. You begin the trek under the leafy canopy to the mailbox.

\--=--=--=-=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--

Joel, be the other guy. You are now the other guy. You are Will, Joel’s twin brother. You have various interests such as biology, veterinary studies, and animal training. You love pretending to be some super strong hero sometimes with an awesome mammalian sidekick, but in reality, you are a wimpy kid who can never take anything seriously. You have an empty strife specibi, which means at any time you can chose to set an item to use in either one of them. You have no idea how strife specibi work, just that they allow you full mastery over any weapon, but can only ever have one weapon designated to it. In reality it is a very stupid, sophisticated device. You and Joel each got one from your Dad last year for your birthday. You never chose a weapon, but Joel instantly chose the blowdart and wasted his chance on anything cool. You carry the Topsy-Turvy Card Captchalogue Modus, it is one of the more basic modi, you can simply take and place items on the top and bottom of the stack. If you fill all the cards and place another item in, the item on the other side of the deck will be ejected. This can really be a nuisance, but if you are careful, no windows will be shattered. It also has a tangible containment unit, which means that when you captchalogue something it turns into a little card that you can choose to put on the top or bottom of the deck. It is literally a deck, the containment unit being a little card box with two slits on the top and bottom where you insert the cards. If the unit if full, the card on the other side of the deck will get sent flying and, once it hits something, turns into whatever was on the card. On top is a little panel that allows you to view what is in the deck so you don’t have to memorize the contents. You can add up to fifty-two cards but that could get complicated so you just stick with five. You much prefer you solid deck over a fakey theoretical garden. You and Joel are near exact replicas on most things, but on everything else, you are polar opposites. He is always a Boring, Hypocritical Downer while you are a, quote unquote, “Over-Ecstatic Weasel Loving Slob”. He even forces his hair into your favorite hairstyle; it is such a bother to get your hair almost exactly like his but messier so it doesn’t look like you are copying him!  
You have the most adorable and innocent pet ever. His name is Willie and he is a weasel and he is awesome, that’s final, no matter what Joel says about him. You have no idea where he is right now, but you are sure he is doing something adorable. Oh well.  
You kick off your shoes and then peel off your socks. You place them on a nice dry rock before stepping into the cool waters of the lake. Your steps send ripples across the glassy surface, like the lake’s wake up call. Around you the tall trees begin to dance in the breeze as the first few birds pick up their song. As you wade deeper, the symphony of the wind is joined by the chorus of the waves, lapping against the shore. The light and the trees dance a waltz together to the harmony of the birds. Soon the small animals of the ground join in with their scurrying, brushing the dead leaves aside. The last few birds wake and join the concert, the song picks up with the fish like cymbals, the currents giving the beat, the animals like strings, the light waltzing, the trees whispering, the birds singing the highs, the frogs croaking the lows. The music of the morning flows thick like syrup through the air passing throughout the lake. The world fits together. BRING. Your phone goes off and just like that, the music shatters. The fish only jump for bugs, the waves only splash, the animals only forage, the light only reflects off of the water, the trees only move in the wind, the birds only sing unrelated songs discriminately, and the frogs only rasp croaks. The music is gone and with it, the magic.  
Your mind starts wandering, as you try and think of some other extensive metaphor. You pop out your phone.

===================================================

\-- divergedAeronautics [DA] began pestering parallelDuplicate [PD] \--

DA: so Will, have you received the game yet  
DA: …Will?  
PD: sorry just listening  
DA: to what, the Near Midnight Melody?  
PD: no music of the morning  
DA: well it’s almost midnight  
PD: oh right time zone thing  
PD: i keep forgetting you practically live on the other side of the world  
DA: ye, Mom’ll probably find me soon and be all “it’s 10:37 get to bed!”  
DA: and like usual she’ll know the exact time off the top of her head  
PD: well my dad wont get mad for me being awake at 9:38  
DA: 9:37 you mean?  
PD: no a minute passed  
DA: gosh dern it  
PD: ha didnt have to correct you that time  
DA: dern it  
PD: got you into the habit of saying dern  
DA: well I'll be derned  
PD: finally you say dern lololol  
DA: somehow it doesn’t feel terrible  
DA: I’m going to end up like you saying dern all the time  
PD: lol :P  
DA: sorry we can’t argue about dern, EA is trying to get to me  
PD: why dont you open a chat room  
DA: you can do that?  
PD: ya ill do it right now

===================================================

\-- parallelDuplicate [PD] opened a chat room --

\-- parallelDuplicate [PD] joined the chat room --  
\-- divergedAeronaut [DA] joined the chat room --  
\-- eloquentAbsurdity [EA] joined the chat room --

EA: Hey DA.  
DA: sup  
PD: hello  
EA: Whoah, Will! How are you in this conversation?  
PD: chat room  
EA: They have those?  
DA: Ikr  
EA: Cool!  
PD: how come no one knows about these things  
DA: Meh, idk  
EA: Anyway, I was looking up stuff about this game you told me about. Sburb, right?  
DA: Mhm  
PD: so what are we talking about  
EA: The game you bought me isn’t the real version.  
DA: Yeah I know  
PD: what!!!! what if it get a whole bunch of viruses on all our computers!  
EA: So then, what is it?  
DA: I couldn’t afford four copies of the actual game so I bought one of those cheap knock-offs that is practically the same game  
PD: still im worried about viruses  
EA: Isn’t that copyright infringement?  
DA: no, it's altered just enough to where it isn’t, but it's not that far from the original, so not much is different  
EA: Oh. I guess that’s good.  
PD: viruses can be scary they can destroy your computer  
DA: I also proof scanned it and it is 87% identical to the real version  
EA: Smart.  
DA: oh, right viruses I’ll check for those, brb  
EA: I totally forgot about viruses. Good idea.  
PD: there are worms and trojans and a whole bunch of other nasty stuff  
PD: wait how could you have forgotten about viruses when ive been ranting about them  
DA: Back  
DA: tis clean  
DA: like a table after you scrub it with a jesus christ sponge  
EA: Thank goodness! We almost didn’t check for them.  
DA: There'll be a few glitches because it isn’t official  
PD: …  
EA: Too bad I couldn’t pitch in and help buy the better one.  
DA: it’s fine  
PD: oh no the lake is flooding i might drown!  
EA: No, really you could have just asked and I would have given as much money as I could.  
DA: no it’s okay I didn’t need it, plus the official version will become too mainstream  
DA: and glitches are fun B^)  
EA: True. :)  
DA: c;  
PD: AM I INVISIBLE TO YOU!  
DA: YUP!  
EA: YES!  
PD: well ok im out >:D  
PD: DERN IT! D:<*

\-- parallelDuplicate [PD] left the chat room --

DA: hue it worked  
EA: Why were we trying to get him mad again?  
DA: because it was funny  
DA: and he made me start saying dern like the rest of you hooligans  
EA: Gosh dern it. :P  
DA: hahaha  
DA: Anyway what did you want to ask me?  
EA: Oh, I already asked you when we were ignoring Will.  
DA: about the game?  
EA: Yes.  
DA: was that all?  
EA: Yes.  
DA: okay, bye… I guess  
EA: Bye… :/  
DA: :/

\-- divergedAeronaut [DA] left the chat room --  
\-- eloquentAbsurdity [EA] closed the chat room --

===================================================

Stupid friends. Oh, look. One of your other stupid friends is trying to get to you.

===================================================

\-- panegyrizedServitude [PS] began pestering parallelDuplicate [PD] \--

PS: Will, pick up  
PD: what  
PS: You are in danger, so be prepared.  
PD: ???  
PS: It took a whole lot of anti-ADHD drugs to learn how to hack so you better listen and make my near OD’s worthwhile.  
PD: what! what kind of danger?  
PS: The bad kind. Shit, I have to go. Just listen to your father. He will know what to do.

\-- Lost connection with panegyrizedServitude [PS] \--

PD: wait! dont go  
PD: what is going on

===================================================

That was weird. Mostly because the situation was not weird, but only because you know PS. But what did she mean by danger? Nothing adds up. I guess you’ll listen to your Dad. You do that any way so you don’t know why it was important for her to learn hacking to tell you that. You try not to focus on PS’s antics and think about the matters at hand. Might as well go back and see if Joel has gotten the game yet. From what you know the real version of the game is Sburb, so the knock-off should have a name like Sburp. You hope Joel won’t be stupid and look for Sburb, only find Sburp or whatever the Knock-off is and leave it. That sounds like something Joel would do. You walk out of the water and back onto the shore. You pick up your shoes and walking into the woods, humming along with the noon bugs as they begin to sing their hymns.

\--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--

Be Joel again. You are now Joel. You just reached the mailbox and are about to open it. The mailbox sits on the edge of the highway, along with a simple address sign, an advertisement for your Dad’s zoo, and the path leading to your Dad’s zoo. It is pretty bland and uneventful here, only a few cars pass by, and none stop for the zoo. You walk up to the mailbox and open it, flipping the red flag flippy-flag-thingy down. Inside, there are a whole bunch of letters for your dad, and two cardboard envelopes. Each envelope has a weird orange house that is missing a brick. One is labeled Sburp Client, the other is labeled as the Server. The game was supposed to be Sburb, not Sburp. You should probably throw this away, cheap rip off. But you don’t want to litter, so you might just leave it here; No, then the mailman will pick it up. You might as well bring it back to to the house to throw away. You pick up the cheap rip off garbage and begin the walk home.

\--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--

Be Will again. You are now Will again. You are walking through the woods, back to your house, singing along with the world, when your phone goes off. Once again breaking the magic.

===================================================

\-- silentSymphony [SS] began trolling parallelDuplicate [PD] \--

SS: yu  
SS: im bored so entertain me  
PD: troooooolls uuuuuuuuuuuugah  
SS: making stable time loops is to boring  
SS: i would rather be carting the sewers than doing this, but i dont want to doom any timelines  
PD: at least the other trolls make sense that analogy wasnt followable  
SS: another thing i dont like about talking to this yu is everything ive told yu hasnt been told yet  
SS: anyway find the foks  
PD: foks?  
SS: sound it out stupid  
PD: fo - ks  
PD: fox!  
SS: ding ding ding  
PD: why not just use a x  
SS: bekause it is a useles leter like q and c (eksept c kan be used for the ch sound)  
PD: ohhhhh so when you said carting the sewers you meant charting the sewers  
SS: right again stupid  
SS: this has got to be the nth time ive told you this, but i dont realy kare  
PD: that made total sense  
PD: im going to go jump on a quilt in a box in a city with a cat  
SS: kongratulations you kan use useles leters  
SS: just go find the foks  
SS: thats al i kame to say so goodbye  
SS: lets just give a mutual skrew yu stupid  
SS: skrew yu stupid  
PD: skrew you stupid

\-- silentSymphony [SS] ceased trolling  parallelDuplicate [PD] \-- 

===================================================

That stupid troll. He is one of the worst; all the others make sense, but he literally babbles and tries to make you seem stupid. Lame. He has contacted you once before, and he made even less sense then. Went on and on about death and evil snake demons, and demanded you to help him. Whatever. You continue walking, pushing the troll’s antics to the back of your mind. You find yourself walking to a tributary creek you jokingly named Rushing River. The stream is actually a slow creeping body of green, soupy water, only just barely giving the impression of flowing. It pools over rocks and lazily drifts downhill, lurching along a windy path. It picks up speed at one point, only to plunge ten feet into a still, black pond below, where it will sit still for days before beginning another molasses-paced journey to the lake. The creek has no importance, other than smelling bad, but this place holds an unexplained specialty for you. To you, it seemed like a can of snakes, boring till it unlocks itself, then it is fun and a big surprise. You know it is just a boring old creek, but you always find yourself here, waiting in anticipation. You walk out of the trees, and onto the edges of the creek. You sit down, cross legged, waiting for the can to open. Nothing happens. After a few minutes, your phone goes off once again. This time, you are glad, because you wouldn’t have to wait in silence for any longer.

===================================================

\-- panegyrizedServitude [PS] began pestering parallelDuplicate [PD]

PS: Will  
PD: hey what were you talking about earlier  
PS: Wait a day to play the game.  
PS: That is all

\-- panegyrizedServitude [PS] ceased pestering parallelDuplicate [PD] \--  
===================================================

Aaaaaarrrrrrgh! Why is she being like that? Usually you can get more than three sentences out of her, but this doesn’t seem to be one of those times. Well, looks like you’re waiting a day. Who cares? There’s no rush, and it's not like it is the end of the world.

\--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--

Will, wake up. You blink the sleep away and sit up in bed. The sun is already up, and Joel is still in bed. You push aside your laptop and slip out of bed. You must have stayed up really late last night, surfing the web. You pick up the laptop and check the time: Thursday , 8:16. Your Dad seems to have forgotten to wake you up for home-school, which is weird. You Captchalogue the laptop, pick up a relatively clean shirt off the ground, and sneak out of the room. You tentatively shut the door and trudge down stairs, stifling a big yawn. You clumsily put the shirt on and walk into the kitchen. That’s strange, someone left the stove on. You walk over and switch off the stove, giving relief to the charred remains of an egg. Your Dad is never this careless.  
You make a quick cereal breakfast and prepare to go outside for a walk. You are about to open the back door when you notice something unusual. You Dad’s door is open. He never lets you into his room, in fact, you can’t remember the last time you had seen his room. Your curiosity gets the better of you and you walk into his room. Inside the sheets are thrown on the ground and all the dresser drawers were pulled out, spilling clothes all over the ground. The most unsettling thing of all was the dark brown leather case, about three feet long and half a foot wide, laying on the bed. Inside was the imprint of a sniper rifle and a splotch of blood.  
You're not sure what went down here, but it doesn’t concern you. You leave your dad’s room and close the door.  
===================================================

\-- eloquentAbsurdity [EA] began pestering parallelDuplicate [PD] \--

EA: Will  
PD: what  
EA: I do not own pesterchum so I had to hack your friends account  
PD: who is this!?  
EA: Your father  
PD: why did you hack EAs account?  
EA: I just said  
PD: ya but that didnt help  
EA: Just wanted to tell you to stay inside and go play some video games  
PD: what now you are ASKING me to play video games, whoa re you and what have you done with dad. or EA im still not sre on that

\-- eloquentAbsurdity [EA] ceased pestering parallelDuplicate [PD] \--

===================================================

This is bad, this very is bad, thisisbad, thisisbadthisisreallybad. Let’s sum up the facts, shall we? Your Dad has disappeared, probably taking a sniper rifle with him and someone who is probably just pretending to be him is messing with you while using your friend’s account. Did you do something illegal? Or did one of your friends do it and they are trying to find you to find them? No, that can’t be right. Whoever they are, they wouldn’t need your location to find someone else. What if they weren’t after you? What if your Dad is actually an illegal animal smuggler?  
Actually, the more you think about it, it was probably just a perverted troll. And your Dad was probably just saw a school of flying moosen or something while cooking eggs and decided to he needed to catch one with a sniper rifle. Then he was in such a hurry, he smashed his nose on the case, and dripped blood on it. Yep, that's it. Well, mystery solved. Hopefully. Time for a walk.  
You shove the slightly scary events of the morning into the back of your mind, lock them up, throw the key into acid, take the remains of the key, bake it into a cake, then eat the dissolved-key cake. Metaphorically, that is. This is your general response to anything very disturbing; create a stupid explanation, then hold onto that imaginary rock for dear life and wait out the situation, blissfully unaware of the danger. You slip on your bright orange crocs and head out to no place in particular.  
The morning is cool, the dew just lifting. The grass crackles underfoot, the noise filling the otherwise silent morning. As you walk clouds crowd in to hide the already shy sun. The wind buffets the tree tops along the path to Rushing River.

 


	2. Chapter 2: It Gets More Interesting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things are heating up for our plucky protagonists.

The normal soft drip drip of Rushing River is absent. Overnight rain must have filled it up. Rushing River was, for once, rushing. It must have been pouring last night. It doesn’t surprise you you didn’t wake up, you are one of the deepest sleepers you know. The only people you know who sleep harder than you, are your Dad and Joel.  
Suddenly, your phone goes off in your hand. Even when you go out into nature to get away from it all, people just don't seem to want to leave you alone. Typical.  
And of course, it isn't even one of your friends pestering you. It's a troll, and they're probably just waiting to tell you how stupid you are. At least it’s the red one. The red one is chipper, like a wood elf or some other fantastical creature. Less reluctantly, you answer.

====================================================

\-- spiritedHarmony [SH] began trolling parallelDuplicate [PD] \--

SH: human!  
SH: hey human!  
PD: why do you insist on calling me that, what else would i be  
SH: a 7r6ll!  
SH: duh!  
SH: i 7h6ugh7 y6u were supp6sed t6 8e smart l6l! 8:P  
PD: what the heck is that supposed to be  
SH: me silly!  
SH: anyh66 y6u sh6uld g6 find 7ha7 US8 7hingie!  
SH: i7 is very imp6r7ant!  
SH: 6r a7 leas7 im 76ld s6!  
SH: my friends are kinda weird d6n7cha 7hink?  
PD: i  
PD: what  
PD: whats a us8  
SH: a USB silly!  
SH: g6sh i7s like y6uve never 7alked 76 me 8ef6re 6r s6me7hing!  
SH: ...we have 7alked 8ef6re righ7?  
SH: 7his 7imey-wimey n6nsense is n67 my cup 6f leaf juice!  
SH: 8:(  
PD: no no weve talked before  
PD: the way you type takes some getting used to though  
SH: 6h 6kay!  
SH: n6w d6 us all a fav6r and find 7ha7 US8 y6u silly h6nk 8eas7!  
PD: i am neither silly nor a honk beast  
SH: 8:)

\-- spiritedHarmony [SH] ceased trolling parallelDuplicate [PD] \--

====================================================

Stashing your phone in your pocket once more, you continue your trek through the underbrush along the river. These internet trolls just won’t stop bugging you! What is their deal?!  
You continue poking along, looking for any possible signs of animal or human life, when you find a poorly sealed plastic bag washed up on the riverbank. Some idiot must’ve thought that there would be no consequences if they defiled the great outdoors. You prepare to shake your head in disgust and shove the bag deep in your pocket to be thrown away later, but decide not to when you see that there is a USB inside.  
You pick up the bag with the USB within it, and stare at it for a ridiculous amount of time. This is almost without a doubt the USB the ridiculous ‘Wood Elf’ ,as you like to call her, was talking about. You have no idea how she knew it would be here, but it must be important if she told you to pick it up. Those obnoxious trolls somehow always seem to know more than you do.  
Figuring that that is enough adventuring for the moment, you make your way back up to the winding path that leads to your house. While you walk, you contemplate what could possibly be on the USB. Under normal circumstances, you would just pop it into Joel’s computer and later “forget” that you had plugged it in and pretend not to know how all of those viruses got on his computer, e.t.c, but that bubbly red troll DID go out of her way to tell you to find it, so it must be important.  
But on the other hand, you know for a fact that she just wants to troll you along with all the other accounts. While you are now less certain that it is just one creep with a bunch of alternate accounts, you’re still pretty sure that actually listening to one of them will bring you nothing but trouble.  
But on yet another hand (you wonder where the third one came from), you don’t really care about this lame thing called caution, so you decide to throw it to the wind and plug in the USB!  
You plug it in. Nothing happens.  
Your phone buzzes yet again, but you decide to ignore it. As you sit there, waiting for the files to load, for anything to load, boredom gets a deadly grasp on you and you decide to instead ask the red troll for help, since she seems to know what you need to do, however unhelpful she may be.

====================================================

\-- parallelDuplicate [PD] began pestering spiritedHarmony [SH] \--

PD: uh hi  
PD: i dont think the USB is working  
PD: can you help  
SH: go away!  
SH: cant you see that i just want to be alone?!  
PD: woah are you okay  
PD: you arent even using your weird number thang  
PD: and you love your weird number thang  
SH: what part of “go away” do you not understand?!  
SH: leave me here to die  
SH: boo hoo hoo  
PD: if you werent so hostile that would probably make me laugh  
PD: but really i need your help  
PD: or someones  
PD: just use one of your other accounts  
SH: QUIT MOCKING ME  
PD: jegus okay clam down  
PD: calm*  
PD: lol i said clam  
SH: UGH  
SH: you humans are all the same  
SH: if youre so desperate just go talk to the “lispy guy”  
SH: hell probably care  
SH: AND HE KNEW HER  
SH: aaahhhh boooooooo hoo hoo hoo hoo  
PD: uh okay  
PD: get well soon i guess

\-- spiritedHarmony [SH] blocked parallelDuplicate [PD] for 413 hours --

====================================================

If she weren’t in such distress, you’d call her a weirdo.  
You answer the other person trolling you.

====================================================

\-- articulateArtisan [AA] began trolling parallelDuplicate [PD] \--

AA: pththth  
AA: will  
AA: i cam thell you how tho fimd the UTHB  
AA: amthwer me  
AA: helloooooooooo  
AA: my pathiemthe ith rumming thim  
AA: doeth the flethy pimk cabbage kmowm ath will wamt my help or mot  
AA: if you domt pay aththemthiom tho me i will thpam you  
AA: you rambumthiouth bag of groumd up wigglerth  
AA: you thordid dithh of grubthauthe  
PD: hi  
PD: i cant understand a single word you said  
PD: other than “cabbage” for some reason  
AA: ah the heir hath awokem  
AA: thell me whath ith feelth like tho rethurm tho the world of the livimg  
PD: thats nice  
PD: can you help me or not  
AA: hold om tho your panthieth im geththimg there  
AA: altho your luthuth wath a gmawbeathth amd your thecomdary carethakimg figure thmellth of elderberrieth!  
PD: uh  
AA: juthth kiddimg  
AA: you domth have a thecomdary carethakimg figure  
PD: um  
PD: USB? does that ring a bell  
AA: yeah whathever  
AA: umplug ith, replug ith, amd click the icom thath thayth  
AA: um  
AA: hold om a thec  
PD: wait  
AA: whath  
PD: can you please not use your typey thingy so i can understand you  
PD: this is kinda important  
AA: mo cam do  
AA: im workimg om thomthimg righth mow amd i have tho uthe a thethth-tho-thalk thimg  
PD: a what?  
AA: theth  
AA: a thethth  
AA: look i have a thpeech impedimemth okay  
AA: i thalk outh loud amd the maththime writhes dowm whath i thay amd themdth ith tho you  
AA: im preththy thure thath humamth have the thame thimg  
PD: do you mean text to talk  
AA: YETH  
PD: so you actually sound like that  
AA: yeth  
AA: anywayth go click om the thimg thath thayth thburb  
PD: but im playing sburp  
PD: mark paid money for it and everything  
AA: tho  
AA: the game you were abouth tho play wath rubbith  
AA: mere peacheth tho the real deal  
AA: i wouldmth ecthpecth you tho umderthdamd  
PD: but i dont understand a thing youre saying  
AA: okay them lethth geth thith thraighth  
AA: i made a miththake amd wemt FLARPimg by mythelf  
AA: whith ith why my thpeeth ith tho garbled  
AA: amd if you domt wamt tho make am evem worthe miththake youll liththem tho me  
AA: tho plug im the UTHB  
AA: click thburb  
AA: let the game ththarth up  
AA: (foththprithe will mothth likely die but oh well)  
PD: where did i ask for your life story  
PD: wait what?  
AA: all your liththle friemdth will be theleporthed imtho the game alomg with you  
AA: amd youll acthually have a chamthe at wimmimg  
AA: (youre welcome by the way)  
PD: whats a foththprithe  
AA: ith a foh  
AA: foth  
AA: a fockth  
AA: oh thcrew ith  
AA: a ruththeth earth creathure thath emjoyth diggimg holeth amd chathimg mith  
AA: with timy pawth  
AA: nobody really kmowth whath ith thayth  
AA: thomethimg abouth a RIMGDIMGDIMGDIMGDIMGADIMG  
AA: ive theem the video  
AA: ith dumb  
PD: tiny paws?  
PD: video?  
PD: oh!  
PD: you mean a fox right  
AA: yeth a foth  
AA: thamk gog thereth hope for you yet  
PD: \\(^~^)/  
AA: domt do thath ever agaim  
PD: youre lame  
AA: amd im altho your bethth hope  
AA: hold om brb  
PD: *plays elevator music*

\-- articulateArtisan [AA] is an idle troll! --

====================================================

The minutes begin to tick by at an agonizing pace. This scrub is taking forever to respond, and Joel is looking over at you impatiently. Since he’s already somewhat told you everything you need to do, you decide to ignore him when he comes back in favor of flying by the seat of your pants and probably talking to Joel along the way. Also, talking with these trolls has eaten up a considerably large portion of the day.  
You unplug the USB, replug it, and answer Joel.

JOEL: Finally!  
JOEL: I’ve been trying to initiate a conversation for like, the past twenty minutes  
WILL: hows that working out for ya  
JOEL: Pretty well I’d say  
WILL: have fun with that  
WILL: i have a fox to find  
JOEL: But you just got back  
JOEL: And haven’t you heard about the meteors destroying everything? It’s all over the news  
WILL: i do what i want  
WILL: the cryptic troll peoples do not lie  
JOEL: That’s pretty much all they do  
WILL: whatever  
WILL: im off to run around with the woods with reckless abandon and there is nothing you can do to stop me  
JOEL: I refuse to let you  
WILL: youve forced my hand  
WILL: literally  
JOEL: What?  
WILL: pocket sand!

You throw sand in his face and scamper away before he can try to strife with you. Pocket sand for the win. You never leave home without it.  
Running out of the room, you leap from the top of the staircase and slide to the bottom on the banister, laughing as Joel curses you and everything you stand for. What brotherly love.  
You make a dash for the front door, and you can hear him stumbling down the stairs behind you as he wipes the dirt from his eyes. Despite your head start, he is gaining on you, and you decide that desperate times call for desperate measures.  
The moment you reach the door, you fling it open and knock over the umbrella stand. You know for a fact that he will have to stop and clean up your mess, leaving you able to make a clean getaway.  
As you suspected, he stops to move the umbrellas, and you take the opportunity to slam the door behind you. Freedom!  
It’s only been a short time since you were last outside, but you can already tell that something is different. The sky is tinged red, as if it were dawn or dusk, but it is almost noon. You guess that it must be from the meteors Joel was talking about. For a moment, you think about going back inside and staying safe indoors while the files on the USB load, but Joel is in a royal snit, and you wouldn’t want all that pocket sand to have gone to waste.  
You decide to remain outside. After all, you have a fox to catch.


	3. Chapter Two, Intermission One: The First and Likely Only Intermission

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We get an Intermission that nobody wanted and less than nobody asked for.

You are floating high above a glittering wonderland of golden buildings. Spires of shining yellow tower up around you. None of them are quite tall enough to reach you, however magnificent they may be. You have been admiring the lovely planet for a very long time, but it is only now that you will be given a name. What might that name be?  
That can not be told yet, and for now you must remain nameless.  
Far below you, the citizens of the lovely Kingdom of Light, formally known as Prospit, are throwing a party. You happen to love parties! You decide to pay them a visit. Floating down with your awesome dragon wings (you’ve found that you can grow practically any appendage, which leads you to believe that this land is even more fantastical than you previously thought), you join the party. Wandering around and talking to various carapacians, you discover that the party is, in fact, being held due to the eclipse with Skaia that will be happening shortly. You share in their revels, as you find it exciting to gaze into Skaia’s clouds, and you find it funny when the gray people get up to their wacky antics.  
Several hours later, after the festivities have died down and more Prospitians are focusing on the actual eclipse instead of the party, you fly back to your previous position and watch the sky as Skaia gets closer and closer. Far in the distance, you can see one of the spires begin to light up, signifying that a kernel will be activated soon and someone will enter The Medium. You pause to wonder how the game knows when things like that will happen, but are distracted when the sky lights up and you can see Skaia in all its splendor. It really is quite a sight; the checkered hills rolling across the land of endless opportunities, dotted with fantastic castles filled with treasure beyond your wildest dreams.  
The castles, however, are not what you were looking forward to, and you turn your attention to the colorful clouds surrounding you, depicting images of the past, future, and present. Recently, the images of the future have become more chaotic as Sburb’s release date gets ever closer. The clouds show lands of melodies and vast rolling plains, of electrical storms and green growing things. You wonder what your own land will look like. You hope it is pretty and idyllic.  
These clouds, however, do not show you lovely images of your friends frolicking in their lands. They show horrible visions of a giant that sucks in the things around him, growing in size and gaining their attributes with everything he devours. Not liking these scary pictures, you turn your head away to see something similarly terrifying. A young boy wearing a horrid pair of princely pantaloons in an awful shade of greenish brown. Who would create such a horrible outfit?! It’s almost as bad as the giant.  
You turn away, trying not to vomit, and look for another cloud that shows something delightful for once. Hey, it’s you! And you have a pretty crown! You struggle to remember your title. Princess or something like that. Nonetheless, you look much more pleasing to the eye than that awful pantsed character. You make a mental note to work on a way to magically remove that image from your mind.  
As you continue to watch Future You mess around in her pretty tiara, you realize that you are missing a much more interesting vision to your left. It’s a bunch of those weird gray people with candy corn headbands that you keep seeing. They’re fighting a giant similar to the one you had seen, but this giant isn’t sucking everything into his gaping maw. Instead, he’s fighting back, lashing out at them with his many, many limbs. It’s quite a sight, and it gets even more exciting when one of the gray people with the broken candy corn drops her bag of dice on the lily pad below her. Hey, they’re fighting on Skaia! You know that place! Obviously they aren’t there now. You’d see them. What’s with these airy thoughts? Has being blonde finally affected your intelligence? No, that’s stupid. You’re stupid!  
The bag of dice. Right. Broken Candy Corn dropped her bag, but instead of scattering like a bunch of shoplifters in a cactus shop, they glow, and all her candy corn brethren have a bunch of cool glowing auras that you are not-so-secretly jealous of. Bigger candy corn people appear out of the auras, and they all work together to deal a devastating blow to the giant. Then Broken Candy Corn explodes, and an arm and a leg land nearby in a pool of what you guess to be either weird purple blood or grape cough syrup. It’s probably blood. Poor Broken Candy Corn.  
The vision fades as Skaia recedes, and you realize that the eclipse has ended. Oh well. You’ll probably get over the emotional trauma of seeing that giant soon enough, and the image of the princely pantaloons will be forever burned into your mind, but the fight with the candy corn people (that sounds like an awesome movie title, you make a mental note to write a book or screenplay about it) was totally rad. In the most unironic sense.  
You yawn and fly back to your room on Prospit’s moon. You prepare to wake up back on Earth, still unable to get that stupid outfit out of your mind. As you go back into dreamland (or, the opposite in your case) you begin to shudder as you ponder just what that vacuum of a giant will mean for the future of the world.


	4. Chapter Three: Some More Things Happen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will risks his life only to find a fox corpse.

Be Will again. You are now Will. You followed the advice of the trolls and ran out into the woods during a peculiar meteor shower, and now you are paying for it. It’s hot, it’s muggy, and you swear that the temperature goes up 10 degrees every minute. Small meteors have started pelting down, and more than one has hit you in the head (and by more than one you mean one of the larger ones hit a boulder and some of the shrapnel glanced off of your face). You’d grab one for EA, but there are more urgent matters at hand. If there’s one thing she loves more than grammar, it’s space.  
A larger meteor interrupts your train of thought by demolishing quite a big tree in front of you. These things are getting more and more dangerous. You really need to find that fox.  
After a little more searching, you are almost ready to give up and return home. This is a forest! How are there no fo- oh hey look a fox. It’s cowering under a bush. You don’t really know how to get it out. They said to find the fox, and you found it. Now what?  
Your phone buzzes, and for once you’re grateful that it’s the lispy guy. You like to think that you’ve gotten better at deciphering his lines and lines of green text.

====================================================

\-- articulateArtisan [AA] is no longer an idle troll! --

AA: comgrathulathioms  
AA: you foumd the foth  
PD: how did you do that  
AA: do whath  
PD: i only just found the fox so how do you know i found it when i havent even told anyone  
PD: i call shenaniganes  
PD: shenanigans*  
AA: well youre thomewhath correcth  
PD: i am?  
PD: i mean psh yeah of course i am im onto you “misther”  
AA: mithther*  
PD: youre lame  
AA: get the focth  
PD: how  
AA: how??  
AA: juthth capthalogue ith  
PD: but its alive and scared what if it bites me  
AA: waith for ith  
PD: what do you mean “wait for it”

====================================================

A meteor lands on the bush and leaves fly everywhere. The air is filled with the scent of burning hair and charred plant matter. You guess that this is what he meant by wait for it.

====================================================

PD: oh  
AA: thee  
PD: oh no! poor thing maybe i can help it!  
AA: juthth capthalogue the ththupid foth already!  
PD: it smells and theres blood everywhere ohhh no poor thing DX  
AA: GRAB THE FOTH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  
PD: FINE!  
PD: jerk! you didn’t tell me the fox would die!  
AA: jegus youre goimg to emd up im a doomed thimelime before you evem reath the medium ath thith rathe  
PD: stop with the nonsensical troll jargon  
AA: ith ithmth jargom  
PD: yes it is  
PD: its more jargon than what comes out of the mouth of a left-wing pro-choice treehugging feminazi flip-flopper AA: whath  
AA: whoth the ome thpewimg momthemthe mow  
PD: :P  
AA: okay look  
AA: grab the dead fockth  
AA: or everyome you kmow amd love will die im the emthuimg “metheor thower”  
AA: kapeeth?  
PD: XD “kapeeth”  
PD: yeah yeah ill grab the fox  
PD: ill bother you again once i get back home  
AA: urgh mo  
AA: pleathe  
AA: mever thalk tho me agaim  
AA: if you really meed help thalk tho SH  
PD: i think shes mad at me  
AA: SH? mad ath thomeome?  
AA: pleathe.  
AA: but if tho thry  
AA: ummm  
AA: LuckththarvedClover?  
AA: acthually mo ith’ll probably make her computher blow up  
AA: go with PathifiedMamia  
AA: the theemth okay  
PD: PathifiedMania  
PD: got it  
AA: mo mo  
AA: Pathified  
PD: yeah thats what i said  
AA: mo!  
AA: pathified!  
AA: like paththive!  
PD: what?  
AA: pa  
AA: th  
AA: thh  
AA: ths  
AA: sth  
AA: ssc  
AA: ified  
PD: pacific?  
AA: ugh!

\-- articulateArtisan [AA] ceased trolling parallelDuplicate [PD] \--

====================================================

ArticulateArtisan has unknowingly given you the power to troll a troll. You will put this new knowledge to good use. And by good use, you mean you’ll bother the heck out of this “Pathified”Mania person once you get the chance. Being bad has never felt so good.  
The smell of burning fox assaults your nostrils, and you remember the whole reason you came out here. Deciding that moving the flaming bloody meteorite is out of the question, you captchalogue the entire space rock to reveal a squished, bloody, singed fox carcass in the crater where the bush once stood. Feeling sorry for the vulpine creature and wishing things could’ve turned out differently, you add the russet corpse to your deck and hightail it the heck out of there before you can meet a similar fate.

Be Joel. You are now Joel, and boy are you angry. Who does Will think he is, throwing dirt in your face and knocking over those umbrellas like you’re some sort of earthen maid? You hope he gets hit by a meteor; one of which has crashed through the wall and destroyed most of his ferret food. Serves him right.  
You get on your computer and begin looking up stuff about this “Sburb” game Will ordered. Some of this stuff suggests it affects the real world, but that is impossible.  
The minutes tick by, and you began to worry. What if he really did get hit by a meteor? You were just mad. You didn’t mean what you thought!  
His computer begins beeping, and you turn your attention to it. The screen is covered in flashing shapes that are somewhat mesmerizing. You could look at it for hours.  
The screen goes black, and an error message pops up. Stupid thing must be faulty. You prepare to hit “no” when the door downstairs burst open and Will sprints upstairs, shoving you away from his computer.

WILL: dont mess with it!!!!!  
JOEL: I wasnt going to.  
WILL: yes you were!  
WILL: wood elf said so!  
WILL: and then she left  
JOEL: Why do you even listen to them, they just want to troll us  
WILL: because wood elf is chipper and lispy guy is fun to mess with  
WILL: duh  
WILL: and he gave me the trollslum thing of another account  
WILL: its weird i dont think i know this new one  
JOEL: Well what is it, youre killing me over here  
WILL: nah

He has pushed you too far! He has forced your hand, and this time, you’re the one with the dirt in his pocket. Or rather, his hands.  
You grab his computer back from him and move the cursor over “no”.

WILL: give it!!!  
JOEL: Nah  
WILL: seriously give it back or well die  
JOEL: Everybody dies  
JOEL: I thought you knew that  
WILL: give it or ill steal all of your shoelaces!  
JOEL: Seriously?  
WILL: youre the absolute worst!

His phone buzzes again. Since when is he Mister Popular?  
He reads whatever his Pesterchum says, and then glares at you with a strangely smug look on his face. You don’t like this turn of events.

WILL: give me back my computer or ill crush you with a meteorite  
JOEL: Youre bluffing.  
WILL: am i?

He holds up his Captchalogue Modus, and you can see that there is indeed a meteorite on the second card. On the first card, though…

JOEL: You wouldnt dare  
WILL: maybe not. but i will throw this stinky fox at you!

You gulp, knowing for a fact that he would totally throw a dead fox at you.

JOEL: Okay okay take the stupid computer

He takes the computer and hits something.  
And then the ground begins to shake.


	5. Chapter Five: These Internet Trolls Are Persistent

Be Will again. You are Will and HOLY POOP CAKES ON A STICK THERE ARE METEORS EVERYWHERE!!!!!!  
You look outside to see hundreds upon hundreds of meteors crashing into things. Tree branches are flying everywhere, and it appears you got inside just in time. Joel is messing with his computer and appears to be playing a house-building game. Silly Joel. The literal apocalypse is no time for The Sims!  
More worrying, however, is the ring of enormous meteors that appear to be headed straight for your current position. Each one looks to be the size of the moon, which means that either they are very far away and about to destroy the Earth, or they are very close and about to destroy your house. You don’t know which one is more worrying, and you’re about to have another metaphorical meltdown when a box of ferret food crashes into your head.

JOEL: …  
WILL: the heck?  
JOEL: Hmm…

You stare at him with the look of someone who just got hit in the head with a box of ferret food by some sort of ethereal being.

WILL: was that you?  
JOEL: What are you talking about  
WILL: did you hit me with that box?  
JOEL: Well i tried to make it move but it appears nothing happened  
JOEL: So this must only be a replica of our house which makes sense because no way could a game make things move  
WILL: you hit me with the box  
JOEL: I did?

He looks back down at the screen, more mischievously this time, and the box hits you again.

WILL: quit it!  
JOEL: Woah cool  
JOEL: I think im your server player  
WILL: that cant work, we are in the same house  
JOEL: Im going to deploy some things that are free  
JOEL: Apparently theres this thing called build grist  
JOEL: And to deploy most things it costs build grist

He moves around some things on the screen, and you hear something downstairs make a noise like a knife on a chalkboard.

WILL: what was that  
JOEL: I may have knocked over most of the living room  
JOEL: Onto the china cabinet  
JOEL: But i mean hey we wont need dishes where were going am i right  
WILL: youre the worst  
JOEL: This is what you get for the umbrella fiasco

You mumble “drama queen” under your breath and slide down the bannister, knowing it gets on his nerves. The moment you reach the bottom and look into the living room, you can see what he means. Broken plate shards litter the floor and forks are everywhere. There’s a large square-ish thing in the middle of the room with what looks like a smokestack sticking out of the top of it. On the side is an ominous countdown that started at 5 minutes 3 seconds. In the kitchen, you can hear him placing down more items; like he hadn’t made enough of a mess already.  
=================================================

\-- seeingDoubles [SD] began pestering parallelDuplicate [PD] \--

SD: Okay this will be way easier for me  
SD: I read some of the game FAQs and apparently you need to open the thing in the living room called the Cruxtruder  
PD: okay  
SD: To do that youll need to hit the smokestack with something heavy  
SD: Like something in your strife specibus  
PD: no way you open it youre the one who can move things  
SD: Fine but youll need a weapon sooner or later  
PD: i choose later  
SD: Whatever  
SD: After that you need to take the pre-punched card over on the couch and put it in the Totem Lathe  
PD: the what?

====================================================

The ground begins to shake from the meteor impacts again, reminding you of the impending doom right above your head and slightly to the left.

====================================================  
PD: nevermind then what  
SD: Then you carve one of the things that will come out of the smokestack  
SD: Dowels or something like that  
SD: And you put it on the Alchemiter  
SD: That ive placed in the kitchen as well  
SD: Itll create a thingie  
SD: Im not really sure what happens after that  
SD: The clock is ticking though so hurry up  
SD: Here ill open the Cruxtruder for you

====================================================

You see the couch float up into the air and slam against the smokestack, resulting in a blinding flash of light and the pre-punched card flying into the kitchen. A blue cylinder pops out, along with a glowing blue orb that is looking at you expectantly. If orbs could stare, that is.  
Taking a heroic stance, you do the smartest thing you’ve ever done and chuck the dead fox into the orb. With another flash of light, the orb gains the head of a fox imprinted onto it, but not much else seems to happen.  
“Well, that was anticlimactic,” you say, to no one in particular.

====================================================

SD: Ooookay…  
SD: Well first things first  
PD: im the realest  
SD: Cruddy pop culture reference aside, the FAQs say that the next step is to grab that punched sylladex card i put on the couch and insert it into the Totem Lathe, that weird horizontal wood carvy thingy.  
PD: you mean the couch you just punched the tubey thing with.  
SD: Ahhh…. Yep thats the one.

====================================================

The couch flips in the air and flies out the wall, taking Dad’s favorite painting with it. On the floor in the now couchless spot is the card. You pick it up and run into the kitchen. On top of Dad’s fancy mahogany dining table that you aren't allowed to eat on is a large circular platform atop a square base with a small pillar coming out from one corner. In between the island and the sink, there is a weird long, thin, tall wood cutting thingy with a blade and holster looking thing on one end and a big computer looking thing on the other.  
You scour the computer side for a slot. On the other side of the island, you find what looks to be a CD slot. You slide the card in, flat side down. It makes a clicking sound, but it appears there is something missing in the equation. Remembering the blue cylinder, you go back into the living room and captchalogue it before returning to the mahogany table and inserting it in the platform that it appears to go on. The machineI whirrs, and several tools that you have no name for pop out and begins carving the Cruxite Dowel (or whatever Joel called it) into a shape that you think must be based on the pre-punched card you inserted moments before.

====================================================

PD: i think its working  
SD: Good  
SD: Now go get a weapon for your strife specibus before we die horribly!  
PD: die horribly?! what kind of a game is this  
SD: One that brings foxes back to life and kills everyone with meteors  
PD: :D and D:  
SD: Seriously go  
PD: uugh  
SD: Go or ill throw your weasel stuff outside  
SD: I recommend looking in the umbrella stand  
SD: That you so rudely knocked over  
PD: *glares at you with a very mean look on his face*  
SD: *glares at you with a face crushed by meteors*  
PD: ughhhh!

====================================================

You stomp over to the umbrella stand, showing as much distaste as you possibly can. Why should you have to get stuck with the same stupid weapon for the entire game? What’s wrong with a little variety?  
You reach into the well organized bowels of the umbrella stand. It is chock full with a ridiculous amount of umbrellas. Nobody should ever need this many umbrellas; not even if they were building a triangular tower of rain equipment! It is simply absurd.  
Rummaging around, you wrap your hands around something that only feels vaguely like an umbrella as opposed to fully umbrellesque. Pulling it out, it is revealed to be a cane. It looks like it could be hundreds of years old, all ancient and wooden and dusty. You wonder how it got in here. Such a fancy old cane should be preserved. Maybe even put on display in the house somewhere.  
You pick it up and turn it over a few times, accidentally captchaloguing it. This cane will probably do a fine job bashing in heads or whatever the game thinks you need a weapon for. You examine it from your inventory and-  
WAIT.  
A fancy _sword_ cane? Holy crap! That’s probably the coolest thing ever, other than a pirate wizard. How did you overlook such a fantastic aspect of the fancy old cane? This cane will be your most trusted weapon in the history of weapons. It shall never leave your side.  
====================================================

SD: Hurry up ya dingus!!!  
SD: Time is of the essence and we certainly dont have time for you to fangirl over a dumb cane  
PD: you can see me?  
SD: Yes  
SD: I can see you at all times  
PD: creep  
SD: You have 4 minutes 13 seconds left and counting  
SD: Hurry it up  
PD: alright alright now what  
SD: Freaking add the cane to your strife specibus!!!

====================================================

You do so, creating the Fancy Cane Kind Specibus. Awesome.

====================================================

SD: Finally  
SD: Now go grab the totem and put on the Alchemiter  
PD: the what  
SD: The thing on the table  
PD: the table we aren’t allowed to eat at?  
SD: No, the one made specifically for cockroaches to eat at  
SD: Yes that one!!!!!!!!!  
PD: geez clam down grandma susan  
SD: UGHGHHHGHHGHG  
SD: WE ARE GOING TO DIE  
PD: CLAM DOWN  
PD: hah i did it again

\-- seeingDoubles [SD] blocked parallelDuplicate [PD] for 3 minutes 35 seconds --

====================================================

You yell up at him, calling him a baby, and ponder over the reason he banned you for a while. “3 minutes 29 seconds!” he calls down the stairs. Obviously you’ll be dead by then if you don’t put the totem in the Alchemiter thingie, but surely you didn’t waste all that time pestering someone upstairs. That would be crazy.  
You glance at the Cruxtruder and see that now you only have 3 minutes 14 seconds. Crap.  
You run back into the kitchen and do a flying leap through the air, grabbing the carved totem like some sort of awesome spy dude who does things like that on a regular basis. You’re cool that way, and you play it off to Joel like you had no trouble making that leap when in reality you are extremely lucky that you managed to grab the carved blue cylinder in midair. That was clutch. Literally.  
You strut over to the Alchemiter and slam that totem down on the pedestal like the totem is a football and the pedestal is the endzone. Not that you know anything about football. You just really like slamming things down on flat surfaces, especially if those things are fragile and not meant to be slammed.  
The totem bounces slightly, and for a split second you’re worried that you may have damaged it. Your worry fades when the Alchemiter activates and a crystal blue cannon appears out of thin air, along with five cannonballs. Cool. You guess this set of items must be what the game has decided for you to use in destroying that nasty set of meteors. How are you supposed to get all of this outside?  
Ah. Joel. Of course. That’s one problem solved. You are then made aware of a much worse problem: What if you don’t have enough time to load all of the cannonballs? Even one of those meteors would easily demolish your house. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to waste most of your time after all.  
You begin wheeling the cannon out of the house, which takes a considerable amount of effort. The cannonballs follow behind you, presumably nudged by Joel. As you wheel the cannon onto the front lawn, your spirits spiral downwards when you see the smoking mess of the once beautiful forest that was once your home. Almost no vegetation is left, and smoldering bird carcasses litter the ground like pebbles cast away by the ocean or a careless child. It’s quite possibly the saddest thing you’ve ever seen, and you are certain you would be overwhelmed with emotion if both your life and Joel’s weren’t on the line.  
You aim the cannon at the first in the ring of meteors. Carefully lining the two up, you insert the first cannonball and pull a rope on the side, launching the cannonball at the meteor (you’re pretty sure that cannons don’t work like that, but this is no time for complaining). The crystal ball slams into the meteor and they both disappear in a flash of light.  
You quickly follow suit with the rest of the meteors, not even letting yourself fumble with the cannonballs as the meteors approach closer and closer. Two, three, four: you knock them into oblivion with each hit of a cannonball.  
Finally, the last meteor stands before you. It is almost upon you now, and you can feel the heat from it searing your face. The seconds are ticking into the single digits. You can feel the universe slowing down for these final moments that will decide whether you live or die.  
Nine. Eight. Seven. You slide the cannonball into the cannon with deadly precision.  
Six. Five. Four. You flip the cannon over and crouch down, lining it up with the meteor. There is no room for error.  
Three. Two. One. You pull the rope for the final time.  
Zero.  
The world goes black.

 

That certainly was fun,  
but you feel like being the science child now. Be the science child.  
You are now the science child, and you are much more awake and much less enamored with dragon wings, not that you ever have remembered having dragon wings. They may be fun and all, but they simply aren’t practical or physically possible. If something isn’t practical or physically possible then you have no use for it. After all, everyone knows that dragons do not exist. They are simply myths made up to explain dinosaur bones that were unearthed by ancient civilizations.  
What is your name? Pansy Soupbrand? No, god no.  
Your name is Lily Campbell. You are 13 years old and enjoy reading as well as scientific endeavors. You are fascinated by space, as well as any myths you can find pertaining to the creation of the universe. You are quite fond of the Greek creation myth, as you can totally relate to the first family in the universe also being the first dysfunctional family.  
You sit up from where you unceremoniously dozed off. The house is cold as usual, and blankets are strewn everywhere. It appears you made a pile of fluffy and comfortable objects in the middle of your living room before you fell asleep. The couch was mere feet away, but you still decided to sleep in this pile. Odd.  
You look around the room. A faint red glow is coming in through the windows that should probably alarm you. The television has a crack in it for some reason, but the sign reading “fjernsyn” is still standing on it. Similar signs can be found around the house, all in Danish. Your Grandpa insisted you learn the language, which is strange because he is normally a pretty cool dude. Danish is difficult to learn, anyway. You’d much rather read one of your many grammar books. English is far superior to any other language. Or at least you think so. Others probably think their languages may be better than English, and they are entitled to their opinions. You’re fine with letting them think that despite them being wrong in every way.  
A crash from outside gains your attention. Hopefully it was just a lemming or some other small arctic animal. The last thing you want right now is to deal with a wayward herd of caribou. Or a human intruder.  
Sneaking over to the window in a very covert fashion, you see a rock in the front yard. A meteorite! You’ve always loved space; wanting to travel the stars and see the universe as opposed to being stuck in this icy wasteland. Now it seems that space has come to you.  
It takes almost no time for you to weigh the pros and cons of running outside in nothing but your pajamas. You’ll only take a second, and there are space germs to be had! Space germs are definitely worth getting a little chilly. Of course, there’s always the possibility you could get locked outside and freeze to death. You decide to bring a key along with you. Just in case.  
You walk through the mostly empty house, your footsteps echoing against the colorful walls that you insisted your Grandpa paint any color other than red. That man would paint his food red if it wasn’t poisonous. He is simply enamored with the color. You have no idea why.  
The large wooden door of mysterious origin looms before you. You grab the doorknob and begin heaving it open. A blast of cold air nearly knocks you down, and you struggle to walk through the arctic breeze. You know you need to hurry, as frostbite will be quick to set in if you don’t grab the meteorite fast enough.  
Throwing caution to the sub-zero wind, you plunge into a snowdrift and forge a path towards the meteorite. Sure, you could've put on some warm clothing before doing this, but what if something had happened to your precious space rock? The germs on it might've died! It would truly be a travesty if you let that happen. Of course, the meteorite won't die of cold. You can. Which means you are slowly dying of hypothermia while trying to pick up a rock.  
You blunder towards the meteorite, slowly freezing to death in your pajamas. As you feel your body temperature begin to plunge, your phone goes off in your chest pocket (since everyone knows women’s pants have no pockets). You pick it up with numb fingers. This is no time for conversation! The life of the space germs is on the line here!  
You decide to respond to the troll. While time may be of the essence, you always have time to put idiots in their place.

====================================================

\-- briskRanger [BR] began pestering eloquentAbsurdity [EA] \--

BR: .Well, well, well  
BR: ?What have we here  
BR: ?A feeble human dying at the wrath of one of nature*s storms  
BR: .I thought you knew better  
BR: .Tsk tsk  
EA: I would question how you typed all that nonsense in the mere seconds it took me to remove my phone from my pocket, but I have better things to do than talk to someone like yourself.  
BR: .My, my ?Feisty, aren*t we  
BR: ?Is that a thinly veiled threat I detected  
EA: I’m surprised you’re observant enough to pick up on that.  
EA: Considering, you know, the fact that you have the brain capacity of a troglodyte.  
BR: .Enthralling  
BR: ?Don*t you have a meteorite to die over ?Or are my troglodyte qualities coming to light once more  
EA: Don’t even think about dissing my meteorite.  
BR: ...I suspect that meteorite is Pre-Cambrian in age  
BR: .In other words, slightly younger than your lusus  
BR: (.On my planet, that is the sickest of burns)  
EA: Oh, please.  
BR: !Oh, how insensitive of me  
BR: .Considering your present grievance, that must*ve seemed so rude  
BR: .Since you*re dying of hypothermia in a blizzard for no discernible reason  
EA: A meteorite is a perfectly fine reason to go out in a blizzard, thank you very much!  
BR: ?Is the dying side-effect a good reason too  
EA: Dying in a blizzard is a perfectly valiant death.  
BR: .Is not  
EA: Is too!  
BR: .Is not  
EA: Is too!!  
IT: l4d135

====================================================

The sudden change in colors causes you to drop your phone in the snow. You hastily retrieve it, and then remember the whole reason you came out here. Your space germs could be dead by now!  
Then again, so could you. It is a miracle of nature that you haven’t succumbed to the unrelenting gale by now. How on Earth are you still alive?  
No matter. The meteorite; it beckons.  
You captchalogue it into your Petri Dish Sylladex and head back so you can resume the conversation from the comforts of your own home. Honestly, the stupid rock landed only a few feet from your house. Otherwise it would’ve been quite the trek to get your grubby little hands on it.  
Wait a second! Your hands are most certainly not grubby. They are as clean as a whistle, and everyone knows that the whistles on top of steam engines are sterile as heck. Surely this lapse in judgement is a result of you being blonde again. Curse those genetics! You make a reminder on your phone to dye your hair fluorescent orange or something equally outrageous. Deep down, you know you’ll never look at it again.

====================================================

BR: ?How did you get in here !This is a private conversation  
IT: 4r3 y0u 5ur3  
IT: 17 l00k5 m0r3 l1k3 4 m30w83457 f1g)(7 70 m3  
IT: 0r m4y83 50m37)(1ng  
IT: d4rk3r  
IT: *w1nk w1nk*  
BR: !Go away, you cretin  
IT: )(0w 3x4c7ly d0 y0u pl4n 0n 570pp1ng m3  
BR: .I*ll take away your juice box  
BR: .Or whatever it is four sweep olds drink  
IT: 1’m 5)(4k1ng 1n my 80075  
BR: !Don*t say that  
BR: !She*ll hear you  
IT: 0)( g0g n0  
BR: .You*ve doomed us all  
IT: 15n’7 7)(47 y0ur j08  
IT: y0u kn0w  
IT: 45 7)(3 d00m pl4yer  
BR: .Quiet, you  
BR: ?Remember what NA said  
IT: 4)( y35  
IT: “83 45 c4g3y 4nd my573r10u5 45 p05518l3”  
BR: !Hush  
IT: 3)(3)(3)(3)(3)(3  
EA: Um…  
IT: 4lr1gh7 1’ll qu17 807)(3r1ng y0u 0n y0ur h473d473  
IT: 533 y4 7r0ll 3l54  
BR: !It is not a hatedate !And quit calling me that  
EA: May I ask what just went down?  
BR: .Ugh  
BR: .Nothing of importance  
EA: Well obviously.  
EA: The level of importance jumped off a cliff in desperation to avoid contact with you ever since you started the conversation.  
BR: .Yeaaaaaaah, no .I*m done with that  
BR: .I*ll seek you out the next time you do something so stupid that I can*t help but to intervene  
BR: .Try to stay out of blizzards  
EA: Hey, I’m not done crushing you with big words!

\-- briskRanger [BR] ceased trolling eloquentAbsurdity [EA] \--

EA: You scoundrel!

=================================================

That fiend. How dare she deny you the joy of using big words! You tell yourself that you will find some way to get back at her later. “Troll Elsa” can not escape your fiery wrath.  
You re-enter the house, struggling to close the door behind you as the frigid gale blows on. You still have no idea how you didn’t succumb to the blizzard. Perhaps your tainted blonde DNA has an anti-freeze mutation in it. That would be pretty radical, if you do say so yourself.  
Rubbing your hands together rapidly, you begin wandering around the vast cabin in an effort to stay entertained. Your grandfather is probably out messing around in that blizzard somewhere, and your power is due to cut out at any moment. You should either find a portable charger for your iPhone (Android devices are forbidden from your household) or get some board games that you can play with yourself indefinitely. Solitaire, unfortunately, is one of the only things you can play without your grandpa. Even more unfortunately, he might not be back for a few hours. A better alternative to board games would be to find a power pack for your phone and wait out the storm.  
You stumble around in a frozen stupor, your hands slowly regaining warmth as you search for a power pack. An idea enters your tragically blonde head. What better way to pass time than to study the meteorite you just risked your life for? You dash up to your room, knocking over several atom models you have strewn all over the place. One tumbles down the stairs, and you distinctly remember your grandfather warning you about them. It shatters into a million pieces, and you find it somewhat ironic. The atom model is becoming what it depicts. You laugh to yourself over your clever observation and continue to your room.  
More atom models hang on your walls, along with posters of the universe that make you seem extremely basic. You are the least basic person you know, and you know quite a few people. One of which has decided to pester you at this very moment. Luckily for you, she happens to be your extremely distinguished and creative Hypothetical Scenario companion. It is like roleplaying for more refined individuals.  
You answer her, as you have far worse things to be doing at the moment.

====================================================

\-- pacifiedMania [PM] began trolling eloquentAbsurdity [EA] \--

PM: (Shall we cont1nue?)  
EA: (I think we shall.)  
PM: (1’ll go f1rst.)  
PM: The n0ble queen surveyed her c0urt, enj0y1ng the screams of ag0ny that emanated fr0m the dunge0ns bel0w.  
PM: She fr0wned when 0ne 0f her lesser bluebl00ded subjects appr0ached her, br1ng1ng terr1ble news.  
EA: “My liege! It seems one of the prisoners has escaped!” He wheezed, having brought the news as quickly as possible.  
PM: She fr0wned, mak1ng a face that queens were n0t supp0sed t0 make.  
PM: “Well then, what are y0u wa1t1ng for? Saddle up my h00fbeast and prepare a search party. She cann0t escape.” A gr1sly sm1le graced her l0vely features. “After all, we have a party 1n the m0rn1ng, and 1’d hate for y0u t0 be 0n the guest l1st.”  
EA: The servant gulped, knowing full well what being on the guest list meant. He had no plans to die that night. “Very well, your highness. You yourself may lead the search party.”  
PM: “I look forward to 1t.”  
EA: *time skip to later that evening*  
EA: The peasant girl raced through the underbrush, her delicate skin catching and tearing on the brambles. She left a trail of blood on the forest floor behind her, unaware that the queen was getting ever closer.  
PM: H00fsteps p0unded the ground, shak1ng the trees as the Maystorm’s hunting party appr0ached.  
EA: (Maystorm?)  
PM: (Yes, that 1s her name. Remember?)  
EA: (I thought trolls didn’t have names...)  
PM: (0f c0urse trolls have names! What, you thought they d1dn’t?!?)  
EA: (You said they only went by their titles.)  
PM: (The adults d0.)  
EA: (??? Then why would you say Maystorm?)  
PM: (Because that’s her name.)  
EA: (Uuuugh.)  
EA: The little girl shrieked. She stumbled and fell, only to be caught by the queen’s outstretched arm.  
PM: (0mg 1 l0ve where th1s 1s g01ng.)  
EA: (Ikr!)  
PM: The queen gr1nned, and sank her claws deeper 1nt0 the rustbl00d’s arm. “What’s the rush? Y0u’ll miss the party 1f y0u carry on at th1s rate.” She cl1cked her tongue, and the guards acc0mpany1ng her dragged the g1rl t0 her feet and hauled her away.  
EA: “No! She screamed. “Don’t take me back there! I beg of you!”  
PM: Mayst0rm made a n01se vaguely resembl1ng p1ty. “0h, but y0u sh0uld be h0n0red t0 get t0 c0me to such an extravagant event! Very few 0f y0ur bl00d are all0wed to even step f00t near my palace. Aren’t y0u grateful?”  
PM: (Als0, a burgundy-bl00d w0uldn’t say “1 beg 0f you”. The1r speech 1s much more c0arse.)  
EA: (You and your trolls.)  
PM: (My race 1s 1ndeed exqu1s1te.)  
EA: (*Exquisite eye roll*)  
EA: The lowblood whimpered. “That’s because you only need a few to make your cocktails! You’re as bad as a (what’s their word for vampire again?)  
PM: (Ra1nb0w dr1nker.)  
EA: -rainbow drinker!” She spat at the queen.  
PM: The queen gr1nned, reveal1ng teeth l1ke kn1ves. “1 take that as a c0mpl1ment.” A club came d0wn 0n the g1rl’s head, graz1ng her h0rns. She ceased her cr1es of 1ndignat1on.  
EA: (Well put.)  
PM: (Thank y0u. Sh0uld we end there?)  
EA : (That seems like a good idea.)  
PM: (W0uld y0u be alr1ght w1th me typ1ng 0ut the rest of what 1 had planned?)  
EA: (Fine by me.)  
PM: The rustbl00d aw0ke 1n a f1lthy cavern, her arms shackled t0 the d1lap1dated wall ab0ve her head. Bes1de her, several 0ther lowbl00ds wh1mpered, the l0udest 0ne appear1ng t0 be barely 0ver a few sweeps 0ld. She craned her neck, l00k1ng for any means 0f escape. The 0nly 0ther 0bject 1n the r00m as1de fr0m the 0pen d00r was a f1lthy tr0ugh drenched 1n bl00d.  
PM: Heavy, lumber1ng f00tsteps c0uld be heard as a lanky beast 0f a tr0ll entered fr0m the s0mewhat small d00rway.  
PM: (l0l sw00000n)  
PM: H1s ch1seled features h1d a nasty d1sp0s1t10n. Alth0ugh he was m0re pleas1ng t0 the eye than the average tr0ll, he certa1nly wasn’t any less ruthless.  
PM: The great cerulean tr0ll surveyed the dunge0n, unsheath1ng a w1cked h00ked sw0rd as he d1d so. He sauntered ar0und the r00m.  
PM: “I think… I’ll go… With THIS 0ne…” He sa1d, yank1ng the

====================================================

You lose interest in the story and decide to investigate your meteorite at long last. Who knows the next time you’ll get your hands on one of these beauties.  
You deploy the Petri Dish onto your work table and carelessly dump a bunch of chemicals that you never bothered to learn the names of on the meteor. You then slide it under your electron microscope (patented by LEGO, of course) as no self-respecting kid should be without one. Nearly bursting with excitement, you look into the microscope to see…….  
Regular iron and nickel atoms. It’s not like space rocks would have a different molecular makeup. That would be both stupid and impossible. What you do do hope to see, however, is fusion crust. Since you can already tell that there is iron in the meteorite, you should be able to see a fine layer of glass, or rusted iron as the sudden entry to the atmosphere would cause the outer layer to melt, and then rust.  
There doesn’t appear to be any of this on your meteorite, which is very peculiar indeed. Surely you didn’t pick up the wrong rock. There is no way you are blonde enough to nearly freeze to death over a boring Earth hunk of minerals.  
You peer at the ~~space~~ rock. It is indeed just a rock.  
You throw it to the ground in a scientific fury. This is an outrage! This is preposterous! This is utter insanity!  
You walk down the stairs and towards the front door. This meteorite shall not escape your grasp! It would be simply awful if something happened to your precious space rock that you are 100% sure came from space. You saw it hit the ground, after all, and who would be more sure of yourself than yourself? You are quite enigmatic that way.  
Your phone begins to buzz wildly. That obnoxious troll Elsa (or whatever the other one called her) is no doubt telling you not to go outside again. You have no time for her silly games. The meteorite has been out in the cold far too long. It will definitely not last as long out there as you can. You pause to wonder if the meteorite would be in the same spot you saw it fall before you open the door, unleashing a gale into your home for the second time today. You make a mental note to build a snowman with all the snow in the hallway before it melts.  
You step back out into the blizzard, slightly more used to the cold this time. It is unknown to you how your grandfather can put up with this. Maybe he has an anti-freeze component in his blood similar to the animals that live around here. If you didn’t know better, you would call him a silly Canadian.  
The mountain above you rumbles, signaling an avalanche. Or possibly something even more annoying…  
You really hope that the cold is getting to your head, because that’s the only logical reason for a mysterious figure to be flying towards you at breakneck speeds. 

???: HALT!  
LILY: (oh god please no don’t notice me)  
???: YOU THERE! SCIENCE HUMAN!  


You press both of your numb hands against your face in a show of anguish. The last thing you wanted was for this stupid robot cat to show up and ruin your sciency albeit potentially deadly fun.  
He lands in front of you in a flurry of snowflakes, sending up a huge cloud of snow that only adds to the blizzard.  


???: What is the meaning of this?!  
LILY: Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii Podge.  


This idiotic hunk of metal and organic material is Podge, more informally known as Painfully Obnoxious Delirious Grumpy Egghead. He appears to be your grandfather’s idea of keeping you safe and out of trouble. Podge is horrible at doing his job, but it’s fun to mess with him. You plan on hooking him up to your iPhone and forcing him to do your chores once you learn how to code. It will probably take some time as you have absolutely no idea how coding works.  


PODGE: Foolish Science Human should not enter the outdoors when the temperature exceeds -1℃. This is basic knowledge.  
LILY: Yes, I am quite aware of that.  


Podge makes a hissing noise.

PODGE: …  
PODGE: Does not compute.  
LILY: Excuse me?  
PODGE: If Science Human knows not to go outside in extreme cold, why does Science Human chosen to? Has Science Human been forced to exit the cabin out of her own volition?  
LILY: No. I came out here to get my meteorite. And since when do you call me “Science Human”?

He falls silent for a few moments. You suspect that there are some shenanigans going on here. You decide to mess with Podge for the sake of getting to the bottom of this nonsense. You will get your meteorite whether the rest of the world likes it or not.

PODGE: PODGE recommends you enter the building, away from danger.  
LILY: Lily says no to your recommendation.  
PODGE: (crap what do we do now)  
PODGE: (how should i know you’re the hacker here)  
LILY: Are you… whispering out loud? To yourself?  
PODGE: (gog you left the mic on)  
PODGE: (turn it off!)  
PODGE: (wait then how will she hear us)  
PODGE: (shut up!)

Podge stares at you, and tiny nanobots begin streaming out of his eye and ushering you inside. You do what any adolescent does when they don’t get what they want and begin screaming at the top of your lungs.

LILY: *incoherent screaming*  
PODGE: PODGE highly recommends you stop that horrid noise from leaving your chitinous windhole.  
LILY: I don’t know what that is!

You plop your rear on the cabin porch and continue shrieking.

PODGE: (what do we do she won’t shut up)  
PODGE: (uh i’m thinking i’m thinking)  
PODGE: (this clearly isn’t working she’s onto us)  
PODGE: (quiet elsa i’m thinking)  
PODGE: (that’s it i’m so done she isn’t worth the trouble)  
PODGE: (fine be that way i never liked you anyway)  
PODGE: (fine)  
PODGE: (fine!)

Podge finally shuts up, and the stream of nanobots stops pushing you inside. He stands there for a second, with a look of robotic confusion on his kitty face. It appears that he has short circuited to some degree, and whoever was controlling him decided to stop.

LILY: You okay there, Paprika?  
PODGE: I am not a spice. I am a cybernetically enhanced feline tasked with your safety, whose sarcasm levels are increasing exponentially.  
LILY: Good to have you back.  
PODGE: Might I ask why you are being inherently stupid and standing outside in your pajamas during a Greenland blizzard?  
LILY: I prefer not to answer that question. Go fetch me the meteorite that fell in the yard.  
PODGE: Under normal circumstances I would, but my intelligent disobedience function prohibits me from doing so.

You fight the urge to scream. It is like the universe is doing everything in its power to keep you from retrieving the stupid rock. Why is everything against you today?

LILY: You just don’t want to go get it for me.  
PODGE: Congratulations. You figured it out.  
LILY: I guess I’ll just have to go get it myself, putting my life in danger in the process.  
PODGE: Absolutely not. If I allowed you to do so, I would be defying my fundamental purpose.  
LILY: But I already went out there once! Just let me do it again!  
PODGE: No. Go to your room if you’re going to be filled with teenage angst.  
LILY: *screaming*  
LILY: You’re not my dad!  
PODGE: In a way, I am. Your grandfather created me, therefore making me his son, therefore making you my daughter.  
LILY: That’s not how genetics work and you know it!

You storm off to your room despite knowing that that was what he had just instructed you to do. You hurl a model of Hydrogen at him from the top of the stairs, knowing how cats hate water. It bounces off of him harmlessly. If only it were real.

LILY: And quit calling me Science Child! If you were my dad, you’d know how much I love grammar!

You slam the door just as the lights flicker out. Could this day get any worse?  
The backup generators kick in and you turn on your T.V to see that meteors have been destroying most of the world while you messed around with your regular Earth rock. You scream into your pillow, but continue watching out of the corner of your eye. You see it zoom in on a house in the wilds of Texas that shouldn’t concern you in the slightest, but something about seeing it and the insane amount of buzzing your phone just did makes you suspicious. Perhaps it wasn’t just pesky trolls after all.

====================================================

\-- seeingDoubles [SD] began pestering eloquentAbsurdity [EA] \--

SD: You killed him!  
SD: You got him to play the game and then he pushed a blue cannon outside and now he’s gone  
SD: And there’s a helicopter but for some reason it can’t see me and  
SD: And  
SD: And this is all your fault and i’m going to die or something and the forest is exploding and you killed him  
SD: What kind of a game is this anyway?!  
SD: I went on Game FAQs and you know what happened?  
SD: It stopped updating!  
SD: The people playing it are dying and now you’ve got me stuck in it anAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUGH  
SD: If we weren’t already going to die i would kill you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  
SD: !!!!!!!!!!!  
SD: !!!!!  
SD: !!!  
SD: !  
SD: are you even getting these  
SD: i think my internet went down or something  
SD: I blame you  
SD: …  
SD: he’s not really gone forever, is he?  
EA: Dude, chill.  
SD: YOU EVIL WITCH DEMON  
EA: You’re probably just stuck in an alternate dimension or something.  
EA: I’m guessing that since you two live in the same house, the game didn’t register you correctly and now you’re stuck in a parallel dimension where you can look out, but others can’t look in.  
SD: HES GONE AND IM GONNA FIND YOU AND STAB YOU WITH A CACTUS AND MAKE YOUR HAIR INTO A ROPE  
SD: AND CHOKE YOU WITH IT  
SD: wait what  
SD: Are you high or something  
EA: I assure you that I am not high.  
EA: Will has successfully entered The Medium.  
EA: Since you read the FAQs, you should know that already.  
SD: But all this stuff is impossible  
SD: And Will is still gone  
EA: Well I would hope so.  
EA: If he weren’t gone, he would be dead.  
EA: You will be too if we don’t get you out of… Wherever you are.  
SD: Well what do we do now  
EA: We science the heck out of this.  
SD: I still think youre high  
EA: Go get your computer.  
EA: I’m going to be your server player.

\-- seeingDoubles [SD] ceased pestering eloquentAbsurdity [EA] \--

====================================================


	6. Chapter 6- Yet Another One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things happen. I'd imagine you're used to this by now.

Be the boy with an aching headache. Be Will.  
You are not entirely sure what just happened. You suspect that the meteor smashed you into smithereens, turning you and Joel into a squishy pulp. If this is the afterlife, you’re kinda let down. It looks identical to your house, aside from the cliff surrounding you on all sides.  
You decide to go see where the heck you are. Peering over the side of the cliff is the best idea you can think of at the moment. You stumble over to the side of the cliff, careful not to fall.  
You take back what you said about the afterlife. This is the opposite of disappointing.  
Seas of grass surround you on all sides. Rolling hills fill the horizon as far as the eye can see, and you can see pretty far what with being so high up. Animals of all shapes and sizes litter the vast landscape, all living in peace and harmony. Rivers wind through the hills like snakes, and you can see that tiny settlements dot the land here and there. Far in the distance, strange temples that fill you with wonder can be glimpsed. The sky is so blue that you want to use it as your Pesterchum font color.  
Where the heck are you?  
Something deep insides you gives you the feeling that you know exactly where you are. It’s like you were destined to find this paradise.  
You are in the Land of Life and Serenity.  
The realization hits you like a pound of bricks. You have successfully entered the Medium, whatever that means. You wonder where Joel is. Shouldn’t he be here with you? He was in the house when it teleported, right?  
You begin to panic. What if he died? What if the meteor destroyed the house while you were whisked away to safety with the help of your magic cannon?  
Oh, and it seems the cannon is no longer with you. May it rest in pieces.  
The absence of the cannon has alerted you to another presence. The adorable little fox orb has followed you into LOLAS (As you have decided to call this world). It seems to be looking at you expectantly.  
Without Joel’s help, you have absolutely no idea what to do next. You would pester him, but your phone is unfortunately no longer in your hands. Perhaps it fell over the side. That would be a travesty of unimaginable proportions.  
You look over the side of the cliff again and realize that you are hardly on a cliff at all. It is more of a ledge that leads down to a grassy slope. You feel a strange urge to roll down it, but decide not to.  
You bend down and slip off your shoes and socks; If you aren’t rolling down this hill, you are going to frolic. You leave your foot apparel in a neat pile and proceed to frolic. The grass is soft under your feet and you pull at it with your toes, ripping it up. The wind blows in your hair. Surely this is the afterlife, for no paradise could exist in the land of the living. You take a deep breath and start bounding down the green slopes. The breeze swirls, carrying the aroma of flowers to you. You close your eyes and follow the sweet perfume. Maybe closing your eyes wasn’t the best idea; your foot makes contact with a rock and you lose your balance. Suddenly, you are tumbling unceremoniously down the hill. The ground becomes rocky underneath you as you crash downwards. The sweet smell you had been following before grows stronger and stronger. The ground levels out beneath you and your tumbling stops. You spit grass and dirt out of your mouth and sit up. You find yourself sitting in a small field of strange red flowers. From where you sit, you can see that hills surround you in every direction. The scent of the flowers overwhelms you. You stand up and look around. In the center of the little valley is a hole, kinda like a rabbit’s, but much larger. You step towards it and look down. It seems to go on forever downwards. And the smell, oh the smell, the sweet scent of rot drifts upwards choking you. You stumble back and land in the flowers, taking in their smell, trying to block the death from your lungs.  
Brzzzz. Brzzzzzz.  
That'll be your phone. You pick it up and begin walking up the hill, away from the hole.

====================================================

\-- divergedAeronaut [DA] began pestering parallelDuplicate [PD] \-- 

DA: Hey Will, Lily said something about you being in another dimension. Is any of it true?  
DA: Will?  
PD: ya im here and yes it is true  
PD: i just got really sleepy all of a sudden  
DA: Okay…  
PD: ohh you wont guess what ive found  
PD: look at this big scary hole one sec ill send a pic  
DA: Mmk  
PD: Multi-Media Message: pants for comparison

DA: Wait, are you not wearing any pants?  
PD: you have your hobbies i have mine  
DA: Taking off your pants isnt a hobby  
DA: …  
DA: Will?  
PD: oh ya sorry just got really sleepy again  
DA: Well go take a nap  
PD: ok if you say so

\--parallelDuplicate [PD] ceased pestering divergedAeronaut [DA]\--

DA: That was a sarcastic jab!  
DA: Ugh

====================================================

You yawn and lie down. You breath in the scent of the flowers. They smell so nice they make you kind of sleepy. This world is so perfect. These flowers are so nice. Any place with these flowers must be nice. You put your head on the ground. Your eyelids begin to feel heavy. You yawn. These flowers smell so sweet. You sweep some twigs out from under you. The twigs are kind of strange. Small and white, like birch. These flowers are so lovely. Your eyes begin to close almost against your will. You love this world. The twigs are so peculiar, they almost look like birch but something isn’t right. The flowers smell so nice. Almost like birch. Smells nice. Not quite birch. Flowers. Too brittle. So sleepy. One almost looks like it has eyes. Nice flowers. And teeth. Beautiful world. Almost like a skull. Sweet smells. A little cat-like. Sleepy. Little birch cat skull. So tired. Birch cat skull. Tired. Cat skull. Sleep….

“Look at this one, caught in the Brazzälbürnch.”  
“Never seen one like this before.”  
“Me neither.”  
“Wanna keep it.”  
“Too much work.”  
“Aww, it’ll be fun.”  
“All right it’s kinda cute anyway.”  
Soft claws wrap around your arms. They lift you upwards. You feel the breeze rushing past you as you finally lose consciousness.  
Before we continue with the story, I have to warn you that we will not be returning to Will for quite a while, and since I won’t be allowing any skipping, prepare to sit through more character intros and shenanigans and hunker down for the long haul. Moving on!  
Quick, introduce the two remaining friends. I mean really, I’ve been putting this off; Joel, Will, and Lily are amazing characters and all, but I need two more, so we will introduce you to the pretty well-developed male character and the pile of nope that is the other one. We have progressed too far into the plot to leave them out. Here we go. To emotionally prepare myself for this ordeal, we are starting with the dude.

Be the dude living in the Philippines.  
You are the dude living in the Philippines.  
What is your name?... You know what, screw formalities. His name is Mark Wallingford. I always hated having to wait in suspense for like three lines.  
You close your laptop and look out of your window towards the night sky. It is 10:48 p.m on April 12th, and you know this because your Mom just came into your room and shouted for you to go to bed. Yes, you are divergedAeronautics, and you just finished trolling Will in that conversation at the beginning of the story. You enjoy nothing more than listening to strange indie music, and when it comes to music, you are basically a hipster. You also enjoy planes, engineering, programming, and talking to your friends. You and Lily are a thing. You are as serious as you can get over the internet, and that is quite serious and stable.  
You really have nothing to do at the moment. You need to sleep, but you just aren’t tired. You are kind of hungry, but you don’t feel like eating. You put your laptop beside your bed and pull out your phone. You switch to the Ninja Kiwi app and begin playing SAS 4 and Bloons Monkey City. The time just kind of blurs by. You sit for what feels like an eternity, popping evil monkey slaying balloons and gunning down zombies. Somewhere in there you drift to sleep.  
The buzzing of your phone awakes you. You pick it up. Dern, those filthy bloons swept past your defenses. Oh well. You switch over to Pesterchum and look at your logs.

====================================================

\-- luckstarvedClover [LC] began trolling divergedAeronautics [DA] \--

LC: SOOO>  
LC: MY SHIFT KEY BROKE AND ISΩ”T COMIΩG OFF>  
LC: MARK< YOU THERE?  
LC: AYYY THE QUESTIOΩ MARK WORKED!  
LC: THAT TOO!  
DA: Just press the caps lock key  
LC: ok.  
LC: wow, you are a geΩius.  
LC: but Ωow i caΩ’t capitalize.  
DA: Hit it again and then a second time after you type the letter  
LC: Wow, you sure are a computer whiz. I have Ωo idea how you do it!  
LC: Thank you gOT TO GO, SEE YOU.  
LC: And it just fixed itSELF<  
LC: OH< ΩEVERMIND>

\-- luckstarvedClover [LC] ceased trolling divergedAeronautics [DA] \--

====================================================

You put the phone down. That troll always comes to you for computer help, and you haven't the slightest idea why.  
Now it is time to be the big pile of nope. Be the… no I can’t say it. The nope pile is too big…. I just can’t. But I have to. Here I go.  
Be the girl. Be the girl in the super duper ultra mega secret top secret power rangers ultraforce extreme super secret government facility.  
Be Anne.  
You sit up out of your somewhat-comfortable-yet-not-quite-comfy-enough bed. At first, it had been a cot, but you begged and begged for an actual bed like you had seen on Fuego e Hielo, the greatest Mexican soap opera in the entire universe. Sharquesha Sanchez, the sassiest African-Mexican ever, has to make it in a cutthroat world of debauchery and secrets. Also her adoptive mother’s churros are horrible.  
Your name is Anne. No last name, just Anne.  
You yawn for a ridiculous amount of time, knowing how the security guards monitoring you hate it when you press your face up against the camera and show them the inside of your mouth for however long you yawn. The lens often gets covered in saliva, to the extent that they’ve hired someone to come in and clean it every few days.  
Ah. The life of a government guinea pig.  
Honestly, it’s not so bad here. The people in charge have almost no idea what children need to develop a healthy lifestyle, so they give you pretty much whatever you ask for as long as it can’t be used as a weapon. The contents of your cell cozy living containment room are:  
One 3-D printer that uses candy as regular printers could be dangerous  


One drawing tablet  
One MacBook Pro (you hate whoever got it for you)  
Three assorted kits on how to juggle (mysteriously missing their clubs)  
Thousands of stacks of paper  
One Ladybug™ phone (only has the number for Pizza Hut)  
The entire stock of Shrek DVDs they had at a single Wal-Mart

And much, much more.  
Your room is so cluttered with the various junk items you’ve acquired over the years that you have to walk a specific path in order to not knock over piles and piles of old Billy Mays’ Oxi-Clean scripts you’ve written. Gosh, you love that man. “But wait, there’s more!” Isn’t there, Billy? Isn’t there?  
You’ve written your own script for every Oxi-Clean commercial in existence. Most of them are pretty run of the mill, but some stray into the flat out bizarre territory. So what if Billy never became Steve Irwin’s senpai in canon? So what if the guy who does the voice for Meerkat Manor on Animal Planet never confessed his love for good ol’ Billy? It could happen! Man, you have a lot of freetime.  
You rely on it happening. Billy Mays x The Animal Planet Guy is your OTP. They will get together. You insist. You’re the one who writes their Wikipedia pages, after all. You are practically God in that sense.  
Your other, less strange interests include trolling Tumblr landwhales (god, they’re the worst) and making the dankest of memes. Most people ask you if you’re a stupid 12-year old who screams curse words while playing CoD. They aren’t far from the truth.  
Little do they know that you, Anne, are the creator of the original Pepe. The Holy Pepe. The rarest of the rare. It is literally a really, really poorly drawn frog you made when you were four.  
You feel pretty proud of yourself. That sad little frog has taken the Internet by storm. You totally could’ve copyrighted it and spent all the money on chicken nuggets, then proceeded to take a bath in all your chicken nugget glory.  
Of course, the government jerks refused to let you, so the only dough you’re rolling in is tiny chocolate bread loaves you make with your 3-D printer. You think there’s one under your bed somewhere.  
Speaking of bed, you stop yawning and get out of bed, preparing to do something productive for the day.  
Of course, you spend the next three hours giggling at this new “otherkin” thing. God, they’re the worst.  
You’re not really insane, just extremely ADHD, but you pretend to be for the sole purpose of screwing with the government dinguses. You’re normal for your friends though. This small list contains Joel, Will, Lily, Mark and Charles the pizza guy. Charles gets you. He understands your pain. And your passion for s'mores pizza.  
Some government punk knocks on your door and yells at you to get dressed for the day. Instead of doing that, you barricade your door with Shrek DVDs and begin screaming at the top of your lungs.  
Now you wait.  
Several minutes later, a couple of guards burst through the door and shiny Shrek discs cascade down in a green ogre-y waterfall. Hundreds of them shatter on impact, and a few of the armed goons slip and slide on the shards.  
“What is the meaning of this? Are you… having the… thing happen again?” One of them, whom you’ve seen bursting into your room a few times now, looks rather red and flustered.  
You pretend to faint, but keep screaming while doing so.  
“I AM A SACRIFICIAL WATERFALL! IT IS ME! BRING ON THE UNHOLY TERROR!”  
The guard screams, drops a few pads on the floor, and leaves.  
You are the best. It is you.  
The other guard sighs and drags you to your feet, kicking and screaming.  
“UNHAND ME, FOR I AM THE ALMIGHTY SATANIC CASCADE OF BLOOD!”  
“Chill. If you want to see Charles tomorrow, you’d better behave.”  
You unceremoniously stuff your head in a Ladybug Pillow Pet and continue screaming.  
Guard #2 drops you back on the floor and leaves.  
You have won. This time.  
You stuff a bunch of chocolate bread loaves in your mouth and begin trolling the trolls, because if any troll could troll a troll, it would be you.

====================================================

\-- panegyrizedServitude [PS] began pestering fiendishAffliction [FA] \--

PS: Hello there mister grumpy!  
FA: …  
FA: I am n~ot this “mister grumpy” person y~ou speak ~of.  
FA: I am a str~ong and n~oble leader, the likes ~of which y~ou cann~ot compare t~o.  
PS: Would someone who isnt mister grumpy say stuff like that??  
FA: I supp~ose n~ot.  
FA: Did y~ou want s~omething?  
FA: ~Or is your ~only g~oal in life t~o b~other me?  
PS: First of all that was rude  
PS: Secondly I need your help.  
FA: D~oing what?  
PS: I need you to teach me  
FA: Teach y~ou what???  
PS: Teach me how to dougie  
PS:Multi-Media Message:

FA: I hate y~ou.  
PS:Multi-Media Message:

FA: St~op.  
PS: luh ya bae  
FA: I d~on’t understand y~our stupid human sarcasm. It is wasted ~on me, theref~ore y~ou l~ose.  
PS: Oooooh saucy  
PS: Does your girlyfriend know about us  
PS: You scoundrel you should tell her  
FA: What?!  
FA: Whatever y~ou’re implying is absurd.  
PS: Multi-Media Message: Saucy

FA: Leave me al~one!  
PS: Alright fine  
PS: I have a message to deliver first  
PS: Since i am from the future and all  
FA: ~Only a wiggler w~ould believe that.  
PS: *ahem*  
PS: Take 5  
PS: Add 20  
FA: That makes n~o sense. Why n~ot just take 25?  
PS: Divide by 10  
PS: Multiply by 2  
FA: ~Okay….  
PS: On a scale of 1-100, thats how much respect i have for you  
FA: 5?  
PS: Dollar foot long  
PS:Multi-Media Message:

FA: G~O AWAY!!!

\-- fiendishAffliction [FA] blocked panegyrizedServitude [PS] \--

Another successful day.  
You get up and write a note for whoever is watching you. You stick it up on the camera lens (with your spit of course, sticky notes could be a potential threat) and sit at your computer. According to the note, you have come down with necrosis and are currently having your body parts rot off.  
They won’t believe it for a second, but at least it’s fun to imagine the government punks scurrying around, trying to find a cure.  
You get on the internet (on your computer this time) and begin writing Billy Mays fanfiction. This time, he is having a rap battle with Mr. T and they inexplicably fall in love for some odd reason. It is a look into your inner soul and a statement to Billy Mays that he should accept who he is and live the life the way he is meant to. Someday, he will read your fanfictions and come rescue you like a knight in shining armor. A knight with armor scrubbed clean by Sham-Wows.  
You write in Comic Sans to annoy the haters.

Billy Mays stared at the burly man who had just spilled his drink all over him. He grimaced, but did not worry, as his beloved Oxi Clean would surely get the tough stains out.  
The burly man growled.  
“I pity the fool who thinks they can disrespect me!”  
Billy gasped in fear, if only to make the other man assume that he was intimidated. With an articulated flick of his wrist, he whipped his overshirt off in one smooth movement.  
The tall, dark, and handsome man looked nervous.  
“What’s wrong wit you? Put- put your clothes back on!”  
Billy grinned, and pulled out a brand new iPod. He began playing his hottest new mixtape. A crowd began to form around them. Several began to beatbox.  
“You think you’re nice but you’re really quite mean/ I’ll clean your act up with some Oxi-Clean!”  
Mr. T began to sweat.  
“I’m leaving.”  
Mr. T left.

It’s not one of your best works, but you have a feeling that the people living in the internet will love it. You wonder how they get small enough to fit in your computer.  
Just kidding. The only people who would believe that nonsense are people who would vote for Donald Trump. You hate to think what would happen if you ever met one of those idiots. God, they’re the worst.  
You hear a knock on the door, and the most beautiful scent in the world graces your nostril hairs.  
Pizza.  
Deep down you know that this is actually a punishment in disguise, as the government people are probably angry enough with you that they would vote for Trump right now if given the choice. You don’t care though, as it doesn’t matter how the pizza tastes or if it’s laced with laxatives as long as you get to see Charles the Pizza Guy.  
You jump up from your chair, knocking over half of your room in the process. Pirouetting through the air like some sort of pizza ballerina, you land “gracefully” in front of the door and wrench it open with some difficulty and great flourish.  
Charles falls through the doorway, looking like he hiked through Mordor to get to you. He’s covered in smoke and ash, and he smells like a thousand burnt pizza crusts left to rot in a flaming trash can.  
You’ve never been happier to see him. You immediately fall into his arms and begin blubbering like a baby seal. 

ANNE: Oh Charles! Everything is awful and I broke all of my Shrek DVDs and now they’re strewn about the floor and my 3D printer ran out of chocolate so now I’m out of chocolate bread loaves and I think some of them are rotting or melting under my bed or something and it smells kinda bad and I ran out of pizza and I trolled a guy but he hates me and even though I’m really sassy just like him he has no respect for me and I have no respect for him but that’s okay because friendship is what matters but he has a girlyfriend or something and he’ll never love me like he loves her but I don’t even like him like that because he’s really rude and there’s another guy who’s green but he’s not really my type and I’m having trouble being all cagey and mysterious because I hit my head on the wall since I sneezed while yawning into the camera and what do you think?  
CHARLES: That’ll be 18. 75.  
ANNE: Oh, you always know what to say :)

He picks his way through the remnants of your extensive Shrek DVD collection and plonks himself down on your bed

CHARLES: So why are you so angsty today in particular?  
ANNE: Wellllllllllllllllllllll….  
ANNE: There’s a game coming out that I really want, but the government people won’t get it for me.  
ANNE: And like I said, I ran out of chocolate.  
CHARLES: How does that make you feel?  
ANNE: Sad. Angry. Hungry.

Charles sets the pizza box on your bed and opens the lid. You can almost see the laxatives.

 

CHARLES: Why won’t they get it for you?  
ANNE: I don’t freaking know! Ugh! You don’t understand me!  
CHARLES: Calm down.  
ANNE: They’re a bunch of pansies! They’re mad at me because I won’t let them stick needles and tubes and whatnot in me! It’s rubbish! Complete balderdash!  
CHARLES: Did you take your medications today?  
ANNE: …….  
ANNE: I plead the fifth.  
CHARLES: Take your pills.  
ANNE: No!  
CHARLES: Take them!  
ANNE: You’re not my dad!

You run out of the room screaming about teen angst to no one in particular. The guards look alarmed. But that’s nothing new.  
Let’s move on from this pile of garbage, and reunite with everyone’s favorite twin.  
lol jk, the other one.

You sit on your bed, stressing out. The silence that has enfolded the house ever since Will disappeared is stifling, and the only thing you can hear is the crackle and pop of burning forest life. Your room, despite being half filled with all of his junk, is unbearably empty.  
What if you never see him again?  
You can't bear the thought. All you can rely on is EA, who will supposedly take you to his relative location via the science and magic of video games.  
You’ve never had less faith in someone in your life.  
Your phone buzzes. It’s EA. Here goes nothing.

====================================================

\-- eloquentAbsurdity [EA] began pestering seeingDoubles [SD] \--

EA: Good to see you haven't spontaneously combusted or anything.  
EA: Ready to get into that Medium?  
SD: Do your worst science witch  
EA: Enthusiastic, aren't we?  
SD: I still think youre more full of crap than a trash can filled with diapers  
EA: I’m hurt. I really am.  
EA: Now then, onto the problem at hand.  
EA: As you have already gotten Will into the Medium, you should know that we have a time limit before you as well get destroyed by meteors.  
EA: So I suggest you pay close attention to what I say.  
EA: Firstly, I am going to deploy some crucial things to your entering the Medium.  
SD: Hurry it up  
EA: I am working on it.  
EA: The Cruxtruder is now deployed in the remnants of your living room.  
EA: Go hit it with something heavy.  
SD: Oh hush I know what Im doing  
EA: Do you? Do you really?  
SD: Yeah then I have to carve those dowel things  
EA: Alright, good.  
EA: Then take those pre-punched cards and put them in the Totem Lathe.  
SD: I know what Im doing!!!  
SD: Leave me in peace to handle this  
EA: In some obscure timeline, one of your alternate selves probably just died.  
SD: Shut up

====================================================

You leave to go fulfill her demands, infuriated at the whole situation. You just want this mess to be over with so you can be reunited with your dear, sweet brother, who means more to you than anything in the world.  
Wait a second. Since when have you referred to Will as dear and sweet?! Some sort of tomfoolery is going on here, and you refuse to take any part in it.  
Thoroughly bamboozled, you wander into the living room and glance at the Cruxtruder. Your Cruxtruder reads 21:12, which amuses you as it is not just a palindrome but a long time before you meet your meteor doom. Your phone buzzes.

====================================================

EA: Move into the kitchen. I’m going to need some stuff from the living room.  
SD: What do you need and what do you need it for?!?!?!?!?  
EA: You’ll see. :3  
SD: That is not too comforting

====================================================

You walk into the kitchen and are about to ask Lily ‘Now what?’ when the Cruxtruder flies through the room, smashing a hole in the wall, quickly followed by the rug and you dad’s favorite arm chair. What. The heck is she doing?! You storm out of the gaping hole in your wall, wanting to go see what Lily had done. You come out in an angry rampage to find Lily arranging the furniture she stole from the living room and more.

====================================================

SD: What is wrong with you?!!  
EA: I am simply rearranging your furniture into a more aesthetically pleasing formation.  
SD: Then why is it outside on the lawn?!  
EA: …  
EA: I am also building a tiny house out of your coffee table.  
SD: Why?!  
EA: I don't really know.  
EA: I felt like it.  
SD: This is not a video game this is my life!!!  
EA: Well, I mean…  
EA: It is a video game…  
SD: Shut up!  
SD: Quit taking my crap!  
SD: And quit telling me what to do I know what Im doing  
EA: Okay then…

You stomp inside in a royal huff, resisting the urge to kick everything you see. Taking out your frustration on your broken furniture is important, but darn it, it’ll have to wait!

EA: Stop throwing a hissy fit and get those dowels carved.  
SD: I  
SD: Am  
SD: Working on it!!!!!!!!  
EA: Good.  
EA: You know, your Cruxtruder does have a lot more time on it than most players usually have.  
EA: That seems odd to me.

You leave her to speculate wildly over _minute_ details. You chuckle at your excellent pun and look around for something extremely heavy to hit the Cruxtruder with. The only things you can really see are remnants of the wall and various shattered pieces of furniture.  
You really doubt you’ll make it to tomorrow.  
You stick a long plank of wood under a hunk of concrete. Wedging a smaller hunk of concrete under both of them, you create a lever and launch the larger chunk into the air with surprising accuracy.  
EA: What are you doing?!  
SD: Solving problems, no thanks to you  
EA: Oh my god.  
EA: What if you broke it?!?  
EA: I don’t want your stupid blood on my hands just because I’m your server player!  
SD: Can it, science witch  
SD: I am handling the situation on my own.  
EA: Urgh.  
EA: Just…  
EA: Hurry it up.  
EA: And get a weapon.  
SD: If you would be more observant youd know that I already have a blowdart  
EA: Yeah, like a blowdart will take down a boss.  
SD: Screw you!

The orb is bobbing in front of you, seeming to egg you on as well. For some reason, this irks you. Who does this orb think it is, floating in front of you all condescendingly?  
You flip it the bird and walk back in through the hole in your wall, toting a dowel as you walk. Unbeknownst to you, it seemingly disappears from existence the moment your back is turned.  
You slouch over to the Totem Lathe and roughly slide the pre-punched cards in, still in a sour mood with the whole universe. The whole situation is ridiculous. Whoever heard of a video game that affected the real world?  
You plunk down the dowel in its respective place. The machine whirs into action, and only then do you realize why you have such a long countdown. The dowel is being carved painfully slowly, and you suspect that you’ll be very crunched for time by the time it finishes.  
You pull up a severely damaged arm chair and sit down to wait.

EA: I can see you ignoring me.  
SD: Bla bla bla entertain me  
EA: You should’ve prototyped that sprite with something.  
EA: Something flimsy, like a floral napkin.  
EA: Not something potentially dangerous.  
SD: I guess my butcher knife plan is a bust then  
EA: Hardy har.  
EA: Seriously though, you do need to prototype it.  
EA: ‘Else bad things will probably happen.  
SD: Oh stop your fear mongering  
SD: Youre starting to sound like Anne  
EA: Do I look like someone who plays mind games to you?  
SD: Yeah, actually

You look back up at the dowel. It’s about halfway done.

EA: I resent that.  
EA: …  
EA: Hello?  
SD: Sorry just thinking  
EA: That’s new.  
EA: Sorry. What about?  
SD: Stuff  
SD: Like the world blowing up and whatnot  
EA: That’s rough, buddy.  
SD: I swear I will slap you  
SD: But I mean I’ve been having weird thoughts lately  
SD: Ever since Will disappeared I’ve been mentally referring to him as “dear” and “sweet” and other sickening adjectives  
EA: How horrifying.  
EA: Did you consider that maybe it’s the severe emotional trauma talking?  
SD: This isnt psychoanalyze Joel hour, missy  
SD: Keep your grubby science hands to yourself  
EA: I don’t even like science that much!!  
EA: The English language is perfect in every way.  
SD: Neeeeeeerd  
EA: Ga sidde pa en kaktus.  
SD: Jokes on you, I have the Google Translate app.  
SD: Also you arent clever you dont even know Danish  
EA: Well...  
EA: Uh...  
EA: Your dowel is ready.  
EA: Go do that.  
SD: B u s t e d 

You smirk and grab the dowel out of where it was being carved. Cradling it like a newborn baby made of glass, you run your hands over its intricate grooves and carry it to the Alchemiter. Plunking it down in its designated spot feels oh so satisfying, considering how long the dumb thing took to be carved.  
Almost instantaneously, a small green candelabra appears. Almost as instantaneously, the candelabra disappears, leaving behind a small green candle. 

 

SD: A candle  
SD: The most useful of all items  
EA: It appears to be burning, though.  
EA: Maybe you need for it to burn.  
SD: Yeah probably  
SD: How much time do I have left?  
EA: Uh…  
EA: 2 minute 45 seconds!!!  
EA: Hurry up and make it burn!  
SD: Dont rush me woman

You look discerningly at the small green candle. It is, in fact, burning. Suddenly you hear a faint chopping sound that gradually grows louder. You look to the skies and regret it immediately.  
The sky is tinged red and a small black dot is in the sky is steadily growing in size. This terrifies you, but not as much as what you see on the horizon. A entire swarm of black helicopters are flying your way. They are menacing, like the ones in the conspiracy movies, and you can see massive mini guns mounted on their sides. Suddenly, a resonating blast sounds from the forest, not unlike a gunshot, and one of the helicopters spins out of control, crashing in a fiery explosion. One after another the gunshots resonate, and helicopters fall like flies. Petrified, you look back to the dot. It’s an enormous meteor, three times the size of your house, but it is still quite a ways away, and you probably have about a minute before it hits you.  
You look back at the candle; still halfway to go. You panic. You try and to think of a way to make it burn faster, but between the pressure and the fleet of dying choppers, you can’t. You close your eyes, and realization dawns on you like a stupid person playing connect the dots. You lick your fingers and grab the flame. As if that little flickering light was the sun in the sky, the world goes black.

EA: Did you do it?  
EA: The screen went dark, so I’m assuming we were successful.  
EA: Good job, team.

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, you made it through the first chapter! Congrats! There's many more where that came from, but note that they will be updated very infrequently. The authors do have school, after all. We're not freelance writers who dedicate all their time to fanfic writing quite yet.


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